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A CALIFORNIA 




Conspiracy 



By P. M. SULLIVAN- 







/ 

A CALIFORNIA 

CONSPIRACY 



WITH 

NEW YORK EPISODES 



I BY 

P. M. SULLIVAN 



A Book ofFacts Not Fiction 



♦#. 



P. M. SULLIVAN 

Author and Publisher 

n. tona wanda, n. y. 



266 






a*V 



^ 



-) 



,\ 



'Library of Qongrea* 

Two Copies Received 
JUL 30 1900 

Copyright entry 

SECOND COPY. 

Delivered to 

ORDER DIVISION, 
AUG 1 1900 



Copyrighted and all Rights Reserved by 

P. M. SULLIVAN, 

1900. 



86875 



''Truth crushed to earth will rise again, 
The eternal years of God are hers, 
While error, writhing in her chains, 
Will die among her worshippers." 

? NAS'MUCH as the following pages will involve many 
"> j of the greatest wealth, political and social standing 
?f and show them to be guilty, in a greater or less 
* degree of various crimes and questionable practices, 
and disclose their true identity, it is deemed to be only 
fair and proper that the author and victim under such 
circumstances should be explicitily pointed out to the 
reader. So we begin by saying ; the author and victim is 
one and the same person, who was born away back in 
the forties, in a log house, on the pine -clad hills of 
Pultney, Steuben County, N. Y. 

His struggles for an education, if told in detail, would 
only show a repetition of many similar instances 
already in public print, so suffice it to say, that up to 
sixteen years of age he could scarcely read or write and 
after this time, all of his energies were used in trying to 
obtain the rudiments, at least, of an English education.; 
and he finally succeeded to such an extent that he 
became able to teach a country district school, and 
afterwards was admitted to the bar of the State at 
Rochester, N. Y. on June 10, 1869. 

He had now reached the zenith of his youthful 
aspirations, and settled down to the practice of his 
profession at Prattsburgh, N. Y., where he remained 
contented until frenzied with the gold fever of the 
Pacific slope, then he went West and in a short time is 
found delving for gold in the wilds of Idaho Territory, 



4 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

where he resided for a few years enjoying and suffering 
the ups and downs necessarily incident to a life in the 
wild and woolly West. In 1879 he became a resident 
of Folson, California, where he took up the practice of 
his profession as his sole business and has ever since 
labored therein, now residing at the city of North 
Tonawanda, N. Y. 

This village of Folson is situate on the right bank 1 of 
the American river, twenty miles below Coloma, the 
place where gold was first discovered in California on 
February 19, 1848, by J. W. Marshall, whom the State 
let die in abject poverty. The population of Folson is 
now about six hundred white people, while in the days 
of its prosperous mining condition it had 10,000 popu- 
lation. Then, it was prolific for its gold out-put; now, 
it is prolific for its murder out-put, eleven such cases 
having occurred there while the victim lived there, 
being about four years. One of these homocides was 
that of Mrs. Frank Lamblet, alleged and generally 
believed to have been murdered by her husband with a 
razor, he being a barber, though he was acquitted on a 
trial for the same. At the time that Mr. Lamblet was 
accused of this crime he had $6,000 cash and ex-Sheriff 
B. M. Bugby acted as his good man Friday. After he 
was acquitted, the victim here met him at Sacramento 
City in a very dilapidated condition and on request 
bought him something to eat, Mr. Lamblet saying that 
Bugby and the lawyers had taken all of his money. 

Mr. Bugby was a very resourceful ma a in getting 
money. He obtained several thousand dollars in insur- 
ance money on some barrels destroyed by fire alleged to 
be filled with wine, while others claimed they were only 
filled with water ; also several more thousand insurance 
money on a house destroyed by fire. This of course 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 5 

was after all other business resources had failed him. 

He had a rival in this insurance money business, in 
the person of James S. Meredith, who in his financial 
experience had profited by a large fire insurance policy. 
And they two being close friends for years had 
another equally close friend in the person of Deputy- 
Sheriff John McComber, all residing at Folson. But 
what of these ever occurring and ordinary facts ? We 
will tell you. Standing alone and unconnected with 
anything else they would not be of sufficient importance 
to write, but when these men are connected with one. of 
the greatest conspiracies both in point of numbers and 
money, to ruin and murder a single individual, to hide 
the villainy of a few wealthy people, then these three 
men are of much importance, and it is well to know 
something about them. There were quite a number of 
others residing at this place who took a hand in this 
general round-up of ruin, such as attorney W. C. 
Crossette, Constable Amasa Mars, and others whom we 
expect to weave in the woof of this criminal fabric as 
the same progresses. 

It was now June, 1884, when the victim began to feel 
the necessity for a larger field for his practice, and after 
canvassing places and prospects concluded that the 
city of Woodland, in Yolo County, Cal. , afforded the 
greatest opportunities and most favorable conditions of 
any place he could find, so he moved over to Woodland 
about sixty miles from Folson. It is a most beautiful 
and gorgeous city, situate on the left bank of the 
Sacramento river, midway between the rock-ribbed 
Sierras on the east and where the majestic Pacific 
kisses the golden sands on the west. There about even 
distance upon an air line between the city of Los Angeles 
on the south, where the rose blossoms in December 



6 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

and the towering heights of Mt. Shasta on the north, 
where the snow never melts, — there stands this city, 
where in 1886 the largest and vilest conspiracy was 
formed against a single individual, that ever took place 
in the United States. There, were hatched and matured 
the most wicked crimes against the laws of God and 
man that educated demons and millionaire backers 
could originate and support. 

The streets of this beautiful place were all planned and 
constructed at right angles, and they are kept in the 
finest condition, with broad sidewalks of concrete on 
the main thoroughfares, and trees and shrubbery in the 
yards, it certainly presents a lively and cheering appear- 
ance and imbues the visitor with the most favorable and 
pleasing impressions. Its court house is built in a 
nicely laid out plaza, bedecked with many and varied 
species of trees and floral shrubbery with appropriate 
walks neatly graveled, all of which make a desirable 
place for a midnight stroll in summer, and especially 
so for those whose deeds are the same color as the 
night. This little city of about four thousand people is 
the wealthiest place of its size in the United States, 
it is also the wickedest place ; that is, there are not so 
great a number of wicked people there, but, that the 
real' criminals of the place are so wealthy that the power 
of one such for evil would equal that of a hundred poor 
crooks. Their wealth allays suspicion and aids them in 
various ways to covertly carry out their evil acts. This 
place contains the elements of the highest and best 
civilization: banks, churches, colleges, schools, public 
halls, and theaters, besides several good hotels. It is 
set in the very heart of the horticultural and agricultural 
part of Sacramento Valley. Grapes, oranges, and figs 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 7 

grow in luscious abundance; also, all the cereals are 
produced there. 

At this delectable and God- given spot, the victim first 




THE MODERN JEZEBEL. 



met the modern Jezebel. She was there in full bloom, 
living in a suite of rooms at the Craft- hotel, and mas- 
querading as a bereft widow, under the name of Mrs- 



8 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

O'Neil, andlf she had been one-half as good as her photo- 
graph shows her, this little book would never have been 
written. Her maiden name was Cordelia A. Gilbert, 
and her birth-place Kentucky, though her childhood 
days were spent with her parents on the left bank of the 
river opposite Sacramento City, California. She and 
the victim became acquainted in July at this Craft 
Hotel, and being along toward middle life, the ordinary 
and usual sentimental simperings incident to coming 
nuptial occasions were not indulged in, but on the con- 
trary in a short space of time, and in about the way 
boys trade jack-knives "out of sight and out of seein' ", 
they pooled their issues and by due form of law under 
a written contract they became husband and wife, at 
least the victim supposed himself to be wrapped in such 
entrancing relations. But not so, for the former Mrs. 
0' Neil was already somewhere on the domestic carpet, 
which operated as a kind of a conjugal interrregnum to 
their legal married relations. Though this fact was not 
supposed to be ever found out by the victim, and was 
not known to him for sometime thereafter, until 
the immoral and criminal ball of her life began to un- 
wind. 

Up to this time, the victim had taken some 
interest in State politics and had been a delegate from 
Sacramento County to the last three State Conventions, 
notably the one held at San Jose in 1882 when General 
George Stoneman was nominated for governor over 
Senator Clay W. Taylor from Shasta County. At this 
convention the victim had worked and voted for the 
Senator' s nomination until his defeat on the seventeenth 
ballot and as a political recompense he, in time, assisted 
in electing our victim Enrolling Clerk of the Senate in 
1884, shortly after that eventful epoch of his life, which 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 9 

is the initial point around which the almost incredible 
tale here told revolves. 

It is now May, 1885; the Legislature has adjourned, 
and its Enrolling Clerk returned to the practice of his 
profession at Woodland; but in the meantime he had 
learned many little things about his variegated spouse : 
such as, that her first real escapade was an elopement 
and marriage when she was fourteen years old, with 
Bud Davis of Iowa, by whom she had three living girls : 
Ella, a noted vocalist married to Dr. J. H. Lukens of 
San Deigo, Cal., Geneva, once divorced and twice 
married at eighteen ; Fannie, twice married and twice 
divorced at eighteen, her last marriage being to a worthy 
gentleman, Harry Hoffman, son of Clara Hoffman of 
Kansas City, Mrs. Hoffman being Secretary of the W. 
C. T. U., of the United States. We present the photo 
of Fannie, which shows her to have a pretty and inter- 
esting face, the death knell of so many of the land. 

The foregoing is a fair sample of the highly perfumed 
and esthetic knowledge a man usually finds out by catch- 
ing a dashing young widow on the fly, and of course 
it is evident, that it has a righteous and direct tendency 
to still the perturbed waters of his domestic sea. 

At this time Geneva and her second husband appear, 
at Jezebel' s domestic Waterloo, and remain long enough 
to get a chance to steal forty or fifty dollars and then 
skip to El Paso, Texas, from whose bourne the second 
husband never returned; and just after this little 
episode of Geneva and pal, Fannie bobs into appearance 
from Kansas City, Kansas, where she had recently been 
divorced from her first husband, Bert Porter; and, like 
Geneva, remained long enough to duplicate her acts, and 
then returned to Kansas City and soon married Harry 
Hoffman. 



10 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 



In less than a year she again appeared as the di- 
vorced wife of Mr. Harry Hoffman, A. R. French, 
President of the Board of Trade there, being one of her 




DOUBLE-DIVORCED FANNIE. 



lovers. The battle-ground of Jezebel's Waterloo was 
now getting quite hot, and the doubly divorced Fan not 
finding , the atmosphere congenial to her aching heart 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 11 

and injured honor soon sought the realms of a more 
sympathetic climate with her sister Geneva at El Paso, 
from whence she never returned to Woodland. 

Within the time above mentioned in November, 1885, 
Jezebel's mother came to live with her, and from 
the day of her arrival until the day of her departure, 
July 3, 1886, her eyes and those of the victim never 
came into square, open contact with each other, the 
evasions being caused by her; and this was noticed on 
the first night of her arrival. At that time it was 
attributed to the fact of their being strangers and per- 
haps natural timidity, but how far these reasons failed ! 
much more serious and grave reasons being the cause- 

The fact of her being particeps crimines to a horrible 
crime against human life and her consciousness and 
fear of detection were the true causes, as we will find 
later on. She was nearly sixty-eight years of age. Her 
features were sharp and angular, her eyes dark and 
deep-set, hid away under a heavy set of eye-brows ; w r ith 
a piercing shrill voice, having a kind of carnivorous 
tone to it. She was only to be favored through fear. 

The house Avas very quickly and adroitly organized 
into a quasi bedlam. The foaming seas of discontent 
and disruption were soon set in motion by her master 
hand. Soon the billows began to break over the martial 
ship and it was about to go down forever. The storm 
demon was raging and nothing could stay her davastat- 
ing designs. And, as if it were to be so, Geneva appears 
on the scene to help the inevitable disruption along. 

She had come from El Paso, Texas, where she aban- 
doned her second husband. In a few days she suc- 
ceeded in borrowing some money on the old man's 
account, and as soon as this was found out by the victim's 
being dunned for the money, she skipped the town 



12 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

between the setting and the rising of the sun, but 
before she departed this characteristic trio of females 
held a secret council and adopted a plan of action which 
they thought would best accomplish their evil deter- 
minations. "But the best laid plans of mice and men, 
they often gang aglee", which the unfolding of the 
facts here will show was only too true for their good, in 
their case. 

Jezebel's elopement marriage was celebrated at this 
city of Woodland, and it is quite a co incidence that 
several years after, her tragical marriage should occur 
at the same place. We will now leave this place and go 
with her to the place of her first habitation with Mr. 
Davis, which was on a fruit ranch ten miles below 
Sacramento City on the river. There they lived until 
their children were born, he being very well-to-do with 
about twenty thousand dollars' worth of property. 
After a time he became jealous of her, neglected his 
business, was more or less dissipated, and in a very 
short time lost all his property, when they went to live 
with her father and mother on the Salt Spring ranch 
at New York ravine above Folson on the Sacramento 
river. This was a mining section and a great many 
deep shafts had been sunk by persons in quest of gold. 
There the feud was kept up between the whole of them 
until one day about ten o' clock Mr. Davis and a man 
named Hiram Gilbert went out in the mountains hunt- 
ing, and Jezebel says, that in about two hours after- 
wards, Hiram returned and said that Davis had gone 
over the mountains to Wyoming Territory, and that was 
the last she ever saw or heard of him. Of course, it is a 
very natural and reasonable story, that a man should 
go out hunting and continue going from California to 
Wyoming and leave his young and unprotected children 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 



13 



behind in the manner and under the circumstances so 
far seen. The picture of this man Hiram is presented 
as a matter of evidence from which the reader may draw 
the inference that the bones of Bud Davis lie decaying 
in one of the many deep shafts above stated. 




HIRAM GILBERT. 



Jane N. and Jezebel were always very charry about 
discussing the sudden and mysterious disappearance of 
Mr. Davis, and once the writer started to ask his spouse 
how it was that a man should go out hunting and walk 



14 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

away fifteen hundred miles leaving children and all 
behind without saying a word about his going. At this 
the old lady immediately jumped out of composure into 
hysterics and ordered Cordelia Ann not to say one word 
about Davis, now, or ever in her life. That closed the 
scene and talk and they forever after refused to answer 
anything about the man gone to Wyoming, but really 
in the mining shaft. Though much had been said in 
private to the victim by the spouse before this time on 
this subject, so that a man would have to be dead in a 
shaft himself not to know that poor Davis was murdered 
because he had no more money, and so was rather a 
hindrance than a help. 

Since the passing of the tragical days of this story, 
the writer has no hesitancy in saying that from the facts 
in his possession, some important ones being from a 
conversation he accidently heard between these women, 
that Bud Davis was murdered by Hiram Gilbert at the 
instance of Jezebel and her mother as here so briefly 
pointed out. 

We now return to Woodland where the air is rife 
with society gossip about Senator Joe Harlan' s daughter 
Vic. and her genial escort for the past ten years, Everett 
L. Craft. The beauty, money, and accomplishments of 
Miss Harlan made her a very interesting subject, and 
the generally conceded belle of the burgh, while Mr. 
Craft was equally if not better thought of by all who 
knew him. He was held in the greatest esteem by his 
young associates, who were numbered by the thousands 
throughout the State. So it was no wonder that any- 
thing seriously concerning this couple and brought 
before the people of so small a place would work them 
up to the highest tension. A Mr. Sill of the place had 
just inherited a few thousand dollars from his deceased 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 15 

father and Miss Harlan was about to forsake her old 
lover from childhood and become a bride of the man of 
money. 

Mr. Craft, having squandered almost all of his 
ten years' earnings for the comfort and entertainment of 
Miss Harlan, was now of course very angry, and after 
her marriage made some foolish and derogatory remarks 
about her, and whether true or false, excusable or justi- 
fiable, an opinion thereof is not here expressed. There 
was now blood upon the moon and razors in the air, 
and Senator Harlan was in frequent consultation with 
his attorneys, Ball & Craige, over the Bank of Wood- 
land adjoining the living flat of the victim. Family 
honor had been wounded, and a lover's heart strings 
torn asunder. The revenge of the pistol's pop was 
momentarily expected, for it was well understood that 
the sacrifice of human blood was the only atonement 
that could be made. 

And true to this general expectation, on a beautiful 
Sunday afternoon, February 7, 1886, Senator Joe 
Harlan, a reputed multimillionaire, after taking his 
family to divine worship at the Disciple church, accom- 
panied by his brother-in-law, went into the Brynes 
hotel, where young E. L. Craft was sitting on the boot- 
black stand having his shoes polished, and as soon as 
the Senator espied his victim, and without any warning 
he commenced shooting, and Craft jumped from the 
stand and ran, and as he ran he fired his pistol. The 
Senator kept on shooting and Craft fell mortally 
wounded. The Senator ran up to him, stooped and 
placed his revolver nearer the head of his victim and 
fired another fatal shot, and then retreated with his 
brother-in-law, both unharmed. The victim was at the 
postofrice and heard the shots, five in number, and 



16 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

presently the Senator emerged from the front door of the 
hotel, pistol in hand, and with a great crowd went to 
the sheriff's office and surrendered. The writer went 
home and on his way stopped at the law office of Ball 
& Craige and informed them of the shooting and killing. 

This was done because at that time the lawyers and 
the victim were supposed to be the best of friends and 
he wanted to give them a chance to protect their client. 

He then went on home and there related to his spouse 
and her mother all he had just seen and heard about the 
killing and concluded by saying, that it was too bad 
these young folks should cause the old ones so much 
trouble, that in his judgement it would have been much 
better for Mr. Harlan to have expended a few hundred 
dollars in sending the young man out of the State for a 
while and until his disappointment had been assuaged, 
than to have shot him for an alleged slander, that it 
would been time enough for killing after all reasonable 
and peaceable means had been exhausted. These 
remarks were subsequently repeated in substance in the 
hearing of Mrs. George Bently, a friend of John D. 
Stephens, president of the Bank of Woodland, and of 
which Ball & Craige were attorneys, Miss Nora Cameron, 
Mr. Ball's niece, and his daughter Katie; and these 
young women, about four months after this killing, 
came to the victim's house and again and persistently 
engaged him in conversation about Victoria Harlan, 
her marriage, &c. And further on, it will be seen that 
these innocent words, with others, were by false and 
secret affidavits made by these persons named and 
others, tortured into an expression of slander against 
Miss Harlan ; and her father believing such slander to 
have been uttered, as set out in such affidavits, there- 
upon advanced $10,000 to have the victim assassinated 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 17 

by hired murderers, the amount being stated by some of 
the assassins long after their failure to kill the victim. 

It is now a beauitful day near the first of April, 1886. 
All nature is alive, dressed in its most inviting garb. 
The green carpet of earth has been spread complete, the 
buds are out and the roses are in bloom, with the many 
spring birds carolling in the bushes and trees. It is a 
most auspicious afternoon for a family matinee, which 
is opened up by Jane N. ringing up the curtain about 
the many virtues of her grandchildren. To this, the 
victim demurred; whereupon Jezebel feigned an 
hysterical fit, and Jane N. declared her daughter had 
been murdered. The victim acted the remainder of his 
part by suggesting that she had better be taken to New 
York ravine and buried in the shaft where Hiram had 
buried Davis. This remark sealed the doom of the 
victim ; his life was plotted against from that time on. 

Immediately after this entertainment, it was noticed 
that they commenced reading and taking unnatural 
interest in the case of Dr. Bowers of San Francisco, then 
on trial for poisoning his wife, besides they were seen 
having frequent interviews with Dr. Strong, Lawyer 
Ball's bosom friend, who had often said he would take 
the chances and do anything Mr. Ball wanted him to 
do. 

Another fact was, that up to this time Jezebel had 
always presided over the tea and coffee at the table; 
now, without reason or necessity, Jane N. attended to 
such duty and she would invariably peer into the cups 
before pouring. Yet the victim could not believe that 
they would be foolish and dastardly enough to slow 
poison him, though he often thought of the same, and 
especially for about the last month before Jane N. left 
the house ; for he was losing flesh very fast and ran 



18 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

down from one hundred seventy-five pounds to one 
hundred forty-two, and little fine black spots broke out 
over his body. He became irritable, restless, and 
nervous, all of which, according to medical science, 
were indicative of slow poison ; with the further promi- 
nent fact that quite soon after Jane N. left he com 
menced to recuperate. But what capped the climax of 
his suspicions was the fact of his detecting Jezebel in an 
attempt to poison him with prussic acid, the facts of 
which will be detailed in their order. 

Of course, Senator Harlan was arrested and had to 
stand trial for this murder, though he had nothing to 
fear from the final result, except the expenditure of 
considerable money. He was admitted to bail in the 
sum of $40,000, which was immediately furnished by 
eight men each qualifying in the sum of $40, 000, mak- 
ing a bond of $320,000 given as a kind of bluff, for 
buncome, thus showing he had moneyed friends, — 
while his poor, dead victim was principally represented 
by his poor old, but honored parents, who mourned 
the untimely and unjustifiable death of their only help 
and son. 

Charles H. Garoutte was the Superior Judge of Yolo 
County at this time and the presiding judge at such 
trial. He had recently been elected by the money and 
influence of most of the conspirators in this plot, though 
he was ostensibly opposed to them in politics; but of 
course you know that wealthy men do not care what an 
officer's politics are, they want men they can control, 
and such a one they had in the person of this judge, 
which will be fully shown before we close. Judge 
Garoutte was subsequently elevated to the Court of last 
resort in the State and now holds such position, and 
you will observe that this statement is not made so 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 



19 



much for showing the dishonor of Judge Garoutte as to 
let the fact be generally known the kind of material the 
wealthy make- their judges out of, that the poor may 
govern themselves accordingly. 




JUDGE CHAS. H. GAROUTTE. 

The first grand-stand play of Judge Garoutte was to 
refuse Harlan bail, thus trying to make it appear that 
so far as the discretion of his Court was concerned it 
was against Harlan, knowing full well he would get 



20 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

bail at Sacramento, thus paving the way to do Harlan 
certain and material good, in his rulings on the admiss- 
ion of evidence. To illustrate, on some material quest- 
ions of evidence, he ruled openly and wrongfully against 
Mr. Harlan so that in case the jury convicted him, the 
verdict would be set aside and a new trial ordered upon 
the ground of error on the part of the trial court. Do 
you see how fine it is played in California? Do not 
think they are fools there, if they are generally corrupt? 

This case was on trial on May 18th following the 
homocide. It was one of the most remarkable murder 
trials that ever took place in the State, made so on 
account of the wealth of the defendant, his high social 
standing, the official positions he had held, and the 
general high estimate in which he was held, not alone 
in Yolo County but throughout the State; and the 
young deceased Craft was not a whit behind his slayer 
in being highly regarded and esteemed by friends all 
over California. 

Ball & Craige were two of the defendant's attorneys. 
Craige was the son-in-law of John D. Stephens, the 
millionaire bank president. He, having a few years 
before eloped with the millionaire's daughter, had now 
returned with her and their children to be fed with the 
bounteous crumbs that might fall from the millionaire' s 
table. To sum him up in the fewest words possible, he 
was the worst and most detestable nondescript in that 
part of the mundane sphere. 

On the last date mentioned, the victim was coming from 
the Court House where he had been listening to the 
trial, and on passing the grocery store of Mr. Burleson, 
on the corner of First and Main streets, this same Joe 
Craige called to him and came out on the sidewalk 
where he was and requested the victim to go to his law 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 21 

office. He noticed something guilty and sheepish look- 
ing more than usual about the nondescript, and while 
sitting and talking in his law office the victim noticed 
a woman's hair on his right leg below the knee, and 
unnoticed by Craige he picked it off and presently went 
home, where he obtained a hair from his spouse's head 
and then returned to his law office, after first having 
obtained a magnifying glass from a jeweler by the name 
of Geogelee across the street. There under the glass he 
compared the two hairs and found them to be identical ; 
that fact being easily established because her hair had 
been blonded and was now grown about half way out, 
which of course made the hairs half natural and half 
blonded. 

This of course was fine evidence but it was as certain 
as it was fine, and led to the discovery of Jezebel's 
infidelity not alone with this cur but with nearly all 
the rich and powerful men who were conspirators in 
this plot. The writer had never read nor heard of 
another clue of this kind being the means of tracing 
out crime until on March 12, 1898, when a dead child 
was found on the ice at Erie near Buffalo, N. Y. The 
Buffalo papers reported the circumstance also that in 
the bundle in which the child was wrapped a solitary 
red hair was found, which led to the discovery of the 
mother who confessed the whole matter. So now the 
victim's case of detective work does not stand without 
a parallel. 

No pen nor words can describe the emotions and feel- 
ings of a man under such circumstances and no money 
could induce our victim to undergo such torture as here- 
in portrayed, not knowing what the final result would 
be. But be that as it may he had been a Mason for a 
number of years and was foolish enough to think the 



22 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

mere fact of a man's being the Master of a lodge would 
surely help a brother in distress. So he sought W. H. 
Baker's law office, one of Mr. Harlan's attorneys, and 
there in a measure detailed his woe and solicited his 
advice and help which was very profusely promised, but 
only to be taken advantage of the same as the nonde- 
script. This cooked the goose of the victim's confi- 
dence in Masons, simply because they were Masons; 
they have to be men first, then they may be Masons. 

Trouble of the kind now under immediate discussion 
is the most rending and desperate a decent man ever 
had, and for the purpose of obtaining comfort and relief 
he will resort to any kind of effort or experiment, and 
so our victim having a lawyer friend, namely, Add. C. 
Hinkson at Sacramento City, who was also a friend of 
the whole conspiracy, and believing therefore that some- 
thing might be done, went to see Mr, Hinkson who 
agreed to come over to Woodland in a few days, and 
was certain that he could calm the troubled sea. When 
he came, he went direct to the conspirators and by 
the time he got around to the victim his whole 
demeanor was changed from what it was at Sacramento. 
There he was disposed to talk and devise plans for the 
best; now, he had nothing to say, but tried to leave the 
impression that he was the victim's friend, who then 
well knew that he was a gangerous traitor and was try- 
ing to sycophant the favor of the all around criminal 
gang, simply because they were wealthy and powerful 
and might bring him in a crumb sometime. The victim 
ever afterward played Hinkson' s own game of duplicity 
against him and in that way made valuable use of him 
as these pages will yet show. 

Singular coincidences were, that as soon as the victim 
had discovered Jezebel's infidelity, she and Jane N. dis- 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 23 

covered that he was crazy, and by all the arts, wiles, 
and skill of generally bad women they contrived to cir- 
culate their wonderful discovery, being ably assisted by 
her paramours and the whole conspiracy which had 
now grown to quite a large number, thirty or more. 
With a little working capital of about six hundred dol- 
lars, they were enabled to make quite an impression 
among the people, who now began to look and stare as 
if to say, "Why, this is strange, they say he is off, but 
I do not see anything to show it." They were quite 
skillful in making this play, for while they were secretly 
doleing out the alleged fact of the victim's insanity 
calamity, they pretended to be his very best friends, 
which, of course, enabled them to make some headway ; 
for, if a man's friends were all claiming he was crazy it 
might be true. 

Now, Allen T. Bird, an all around crook and editor 
of the "Yolo Mail" was one of these conspirators, and 
to fittingly help these insanity mongers along, printed 
the following libel in his paper: 

"A PROMISED WOODLAND SENSATION." 

"It was common talk on the streets of Woodland last 
evening that another sensation was likely to occur, and 
there was a general air of expectancy and belief that the 
petulent pop of the pistol might at any moment be 
heard. These rumors are said to have been caused by 
the fact that a certain lawyer has been making threats 
against another limb of the law, who, he asserts, has 
been intimate with his wife. Friends of the accused man 
say that the accuser is on the verge of insanity from 
drink, and that his alleged wrongs are imaginary. The 
warrior who is on the war path is likely to be examined 
by the commissioners of lunacy unless he soon subsides, 
and it is known that preliminary steps have been taken 
to such action." 



24 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 



Remember this was about the first of June, 1886, 
when the victim was so very crazy; also that Frank 




DISTRICT ATTORNEY SPRAGUE. 



Sprague, whose photo we present as point of study and 
evidence and who had, the same as Judge Garoutte, 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 25 

been recently elected for carrying out the foul schemes 
of this gang, now came forward and made affidavit for a 
warrant of arrest for the victim because he was so very 
dangerously crazy. We also present this affidavit : 

STATE OF CALIFORNIA, | 
County of Yolo. j ss# 

"Frank Sprague being duly sworn on oath says, that 
he is informed and believes that there is now in said 
County an insane person whose name is P. M. Sullivan, 
who is so far disordered in mind as to endanger health, 
person or property, and affiant therefore asks that said 
person be arrested and taken before a judge of a Court 
of Record within said County for examination. 

FRANK SPRAGUE. 

Subscribed and sworn to before me 
this 6th day of July, A. D., 1886. 

Fred Schleman, Clerk." 

This affidavit was adroitly brought to the ears of the 
victim as a kind of scare and bluff into silence. Because 
(these libertines knew their reputation in this regard was 
so unsavory before the people, that, as soon as it was 
touched with an accusation of truth, it would fall to 
pieces, so they had to do something to break the victim 
down. He understood this situation just as well as 
they did, and governed himself accordingly. He was 
further satisfied that they dared not stop the murder 
trial of Harlan now in progress, which lasted about 
seventy-five days, to try to send him to an asylum, 
Judge Garoutte being the only person who had legal 
power to make such a committment, for the moment 
the trial was stopped for such a purpose the people 
would be aroused and see through the whole farce, and 
the result would be more disastrous to them than to the 
victim. So if done, it must be in some way, done in 



26 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

secret, and their plan in this regard will soon develop. 

J. C. Bull, originally from Ohio, was the general- 
issimo of this conspiracy, which, under his grand 
management, had now grown to be large and formidable. 

Henry E. Heighten, chief l counsel of Harlan, ex- 
Attorney- General A. L. Hart, the District Attorney's 
assistant in this case, Sheriff Beamer, and a host of 
others were members in high and lacivious standing, 
and of course mutual protection was the Shibboleth 
among them; and the Sheriff and. District Attorney for 
the purpose of winning new laurels and proving them- 
selves entitled to full recognition and confidence, as well 
as future political preferment, now called at the victim's 
home, and for the first and last time, and after chatting 
for a while in a general way arose, and as the Sheriff 
was about to retire said : ' ' Well I guess I won' t arrest 
you this evening, you appear to be sane enough." The 
victim understood this was a play at intimidation to 
silence, and was so thoroughly disgusted with their weak 
and criminal bluff, made them no reply and they 
hustled out. 

Generalissimo was now in great glee, reveling among 
the realms of self-adulation. He was next to the chief 
counsel in the defense of a great murder trial, which 
many of the people said he brought about by aggravat- 
ing advice in order that he might get a whack at the fat 
pocketbook of the accused. He was the acknowledged 
chief organizer of a large conspiracy to ruin a man to 
hide his own infamy. His self-written greatness was 
circulating through the newspapers and his photo- 
graphed physique was spread and given both right and 
left. We present one of his photos here. 

We warn you to be careful and not take him for 
Brigham Young. From his own lecherous standpoint 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 



27 



he had great cause for rejoicing; for he was now sure of 
his reckoning and had a large fawning army to back him. 
He and the Bank of Woodland were the pivot around 
which an admiring multitude were circulating. They 




GENERALISSIMO. 



were the dispensary at which a priest, preachers, 
teachers, doctors, lawyers, editors, merchants, ladies of 
ease, pimps and politicians received the reward for their 
subservient and debauched infamy. Having repeatedly 



28 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

been in this kind of business for the greater part of his 
natural life, Generalissimo was assuredly the right kind 
of man for the place he now occupied. He was afflicted 
in about the same way as the horse which ate the Po 
Po Compound, instead of being one horse, he was now 
two, or more. 

This lacivious combine was now a government within 
itself, and so must have its secret service system, its 
mail system, and so on down the line. They had 
several secret letter stations where Jezebel could safely 
deposit and surely receive communications for and from 
the combine whenever the same might be necessary for 
advisement on any new departure, or emergency case 
that might arise. Ley's photograph gallery was the 
principal one of these offices. The secret service depart- 
ment was presided over by Pimp Provost, assisted by a 
Mr. Houston, the assessor, as his chief deputy. By 
this department the victim's whereabouts were known 
both night and day, and his actions and words were 
closely noted, so that if perchance he made the least 
threat against the lives of any of this array, he might be 
arrested and required to give bonds to keep the peace, 
which would have been placed so high that he could not 
reach them, and then he could be placed in jail, and 
matters would then have been just lovely for the com- 
bine. 

But he gave them no chance for such arrest, know- 
ing its sure results then, the same as here pointed 
out. And in trying to work this kind of play, they sent 
all classes, kinds, ages, and sexes to him to draw him 
out into making some remark that could be tortured 
into a threat against life. Long before this time, he 
understood their plan of ruin, and he was fighting them 
as they were him, in secret, pretending friendship, and 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 29 

carefully noting in writing, acts and facts of any partic- 
ular moment, which, the reader will observe, are now 
being put to good and wholesome use. Just to illustrate 
the ways of the secret clan, which, it is safe to calculate 
would be duplicated under like circumstances, this Mr. 
Houston as a reward was selected assessor and Provost 
was made his deputy. Ex-Sheriff Rahaum and ex- 
County-Treasurer Kane with many others too numerous 
to mention were in this secret service department. It 
was a very large, rich pie and of course all wanted a 
piece and those that did not get any then will be given 
none now. 

The slow poison which the victim had been uncon- 
sciously getting now for nearly three months was begin- 
ning to leave its effects, which, together with the work 
and worry incident to a campaign of this kind was 
plainly visible in his appearance. So the great General- 
issimo and Jezebel, being so very solicitous of his wel- 
fare, concocted the plan of having Dr. Strong prescribe 
for him, and in this plot she worked very hard for some 
time, but all to no avail, for he knew this doctor and 
the general were pals, and had been bosom friends for 
years, and he was through with trusting any of this 
combine: Besides, he had heard the doctor say, he 
would go any length for Ball, also that he would kill a 
man for twenty-five dollars, this last assertion growing 
out of a discussion about the doctor's having the best of 
the attorneys, wherein they could bury their clients. 

So this plan of destruction failed, and another was 
devised by the officers of the combine, to have Jezebel 
induce the victim to take a trip to the mountains under 
the pretense that a change of climate would do him 
good. Upon this scheme she worked very skillfully 
and hard for some days, but failed to induce him to 



30 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

believe that such a course was advisable. He had seen 
too much of mountain life already. He had known of 
men going to the mountains with their assumed best 
friends, and be taken by them for a deer or grizzly bear 
and shot. He also knew of the fatal hunting trip of 
poor murdered Davis with Hiram at Salt Spring ranch. 

The breath that it had taken to propose this last mur- 
der plot had scarcely been wasted, until Generalissimo 
being chagrined under defeat and panting with rage to 
murder a poor, obscure citizen in secret, conceived 
another plot in which he was the person to do the job 
and thereby have no more failures. This next exter- 
mination scheme was a deer hunt which the valiant 
general proposed to the victim. The place to hunt was 
Casche Creek near Woodland, where there had not been 
a deer for years, though the victim was not presumed to 
know this fact, he having been a resident there for so 
short a time. The victim was known to be a good shot 
and fond of such sport, but somehow he did not seem 
to fall into the trap, and the whole killing scheme of 
both deer and victim failed, which left Generalissimo 
with his army of sirens and libertines stranded on the 
shores of Scheming Defeat. 

The insanity fagots which had been lighted to burn 
up the victim were now nickering very low, and the 
injury done Avas more to the combine than to him, and 
they not being able to use their Judge at this time for 
such incarceration purpose, hence their resort to the 
secret murder plots ; and it is perfectly plain that if the 
victim had gone to the mountains or hunting deer it 
would have been a dear hunt for him. He would have 
been shot, and the professed but false friendships by 
this combine for him, together with their wealth and 
their control of the press and officials, would have pre- 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 31 

vented discovery and forever silenced all inquiry about 
his untimely demise. You see the trouble with them, 
as in most all cases, they were overrating themselves 
and underrating the object of their hate. 

The spouse now undertook to simulate a very lively 
interest in the social and beneficial welfare of the victim ; 
she thought it would be real nice for him to join a social 
and beneficial order with an insurance policy of $3,000 
attached. It would make a place for him to spend a 
visiting evening, besides in case of death this money 
would come in very handy. She suggested a flourish- 
ing order called the Chosen Friends, but he had chosen 
all the friends he wanted just then, besides his fear of 
dying was not equal to their desire to have him die, and 
suffice it to say, he did not join nor insure, and so it 
was another little plot fizzled. 

The officers of the combine were now in desperate 
straits. The victim was going about his business in his 
usual manner, and the insanity seed was not producing 
according to calculation, but was rather like an old pair 
of pants, fraying out at the bottom. The outsiders to 
this scandal were beginning to see this insanity dis- 
covery was no discovery at all further than to show the 
parties who started the same must have been egregiously 
wrong, or else had some deep and mysterious reason for 
so doing. These outsiders could not reconcile the 
asserted friendship of these people for the victim, and 
at the same time their assertion that he was crazy, when 
they knew this insanity charge was false. They knew 
there must be some ulterior reason for this conflicting 
attitude, so it must be that some of these parties were 
breaking up the victim's home and their unsavory 
reputation in this respect was about all the decent people 
wanted to know on this insanity charge. 



32 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

These destroyers were in some sense not fools and 
understood the whole condition of affairs and the senti- 
ment of the people, and hence that their secret murder 
plot must be re-organized on a large and more certain 
scale, or they would all be found out and exposed, and 
they themselves would be ruined instead of the victim. 
What a catastrophe for such a wealthy lot of lords! 

To work out this contemplated end, especially of 
secrecy, Generalissimo sent his son Joe, a law student in 
his office, away to his ranch in Colusa County ; also W. 
T. Hunt who had sleeping apartments on the opposite 
side of the hall to Jezebel's flat and Ball & Craige's 
law office, went away at the same time, and instead of 
giving up the keys to the landlord, secretly gave them to 
Jezebel. This was on June 30, 1886, and Mr. Hunt 
and little Joe did not return until the battle was about 
over on September 27, 1886, the day Jezebel evacuated 
her flat and moved to a convenient place for her busi- 
ness. 

We must give the devil his due and say, it was 
eminently good criminal judgment to send the young 
man and old man away from the immediate scene of an 
intended murder, for if ever called upon to give evi- 
dence, they might fall down in their testimony ; there- 
fore, it would be safest to lodge this crime only in the 
breasts of well-experienced and desperate criminals, who 
each had a mutual interest in its secrecy. 

We think it was the last day mentioned this great 
murder trial was proceeding in the Opera House in 
front of the stage. There was a small door cut in front 
of the stage for the accommodation of the orchestra, who 
would open this door and emerge or retire, as the case 
might require, there being'four or five steps of stairs to 
go up or down. Some of the decent people of Woodland 



34 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

raised a pool, and through misplaced confidence, 
retained ex- Attorney-General Hart to assist the District 
Attorney in the prosecution of the case. Hart had 
clandestinely become acquainted with Jezebel during 
this trial and was now her special friend. He and 
Craige were whispering together at the trial when all at 
once one of the secret spies, who had been stationed at 
the entrance to give the alarm in case of the danger from 
the victim, signalled an alarm of danger, and pell-mell 
the cur jumped over Hart, grabbed the orchastra door 
and jerked it open and tumbled down the little stairs 
under the stage. 

Court was interrupted and all suspended for a moment 
or two, and the danger alarm being found to be false, 
and the Court, officers and lawyers all being fully 
advised as to the situation from previous guilty know- 
ledge, resumed the trial without a word being said ; but 
of course they afterwards had a good one on the 
cowardly cur, who was there surrounded by the power 
and protection of millions of dollars, and a secret body 
guard to protect him from a one lone individual, and 
then jumping through himself on the approach of a 
shadow. 

Another little episode occurred on the evening of this 
day in which the combine's Jezebel circumstantially 
proved her and their guilt. It was this way: The 
victim was on the street and some boys fired off some 
bombs, which sounded like pistol shots. She heard 
the noise and ran to the head of the stairs and called to 
Philip Dapanger, who was at the bottom of the stairs, 
to come there quick, somebody had been shot. Mr. 
Dapanger went up the stairs, and then she first tried 
the office door of Ball & Craige, but finding it locked, 
she tried the door of Mr. Hunt's room to which she 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 35 

had the keys in her pocket, but did not attempt to un- 
lock it. Then she said, "Phil, you know Sullivan is 
not in his right mind and I am afraid he will kill some- 
body." A guilty conscience needs no accuser, and 
when she heard the fireworks she thought it was the 
expected death of the victim, and she wanted Dapanger 
there to clear her skirts ; then when no one was found 
dead, the silly excuse to cover her scare, that the victim 
was crazy, a matter they could not prove, nor will this 
book prove, but quite the contrary. 

These secret failures of the conspiracy, and the senti 
ments of the people now plainly turning against it, were 
goading it on to desperation ; they must do something 
with the victim soon and effectual, or their exposure 
would surely follow, and that would be equivalent to 
the ruin of all of them. So at last a new plot was 
evolved, and John W. Goin, another of Harlan's 
attorneys, was brought into use. If any man could 
have any influence with the victim it was known this 
attorney could, because of the fact of Mr. Goin's being 
a man and a Mason and so considered by the victim as 
well as by all others, was also well known. Now, Mr. 
Goin was specifically informed of what was desired of him 
though he was by no means let into the inner circle of 
the secrets of the combine. He was to go to the victim 
and inform him that unless he would go to San Fran- 
cisco and remain for a while he would certainly be 
murdered in his own house at night, but that if he 
would consent to go, money would be furnished him for 
his necessary expenses, and as an earnest, Mr. Goin then 
o'ffered the preliminary sum of $20 in gold to start the 
trip. 

So inasmuch as he had some business at San 
Francisco, and as he would avoid the persecutions of 



36 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

the conspiracy at its expense, he consented to go as 
soon as he could arrange some matters. But little did 
he think of the real designs of this conspiracy at that 
time, neither did Mr. Goin know of their real motives 
in getting the victim to San Francisco. 

As soon as the conspiracy obtained information that 
the victim had agreed with Mr. Goin to go to San Fran- 
cisco, Attorney Craige hurriedly left the defense of his 
murderer and went to San Francisco, that being his old 
stamping ground, and the place where he planned the 
elopement escapade with the bank president' s daughter. 
He was one of the boys from this city and knew its 
gutters and byways, its thugs, crooks, and crooked 
officials in general. He returned and then this Attorne}^ 
Baker likewise left the defense of Harlan and went to 
San Francisco and remained away for a few days. Our 
victim noted these facts and began to meditate on their 
meaning. After reasoning on the situation he was able 
to see what a perfect defense it would be for this con- 
spiracy to be able, in truth, to say the victim was all 
wrong and in proof of the same, he had been sent to an 
asylum, even if only for a day, from San Francisco. 

And he began to see how easy it would be for these two 
attorneys to have fixed the witnesses, commissioners 
and Judge while they were at San Francisco, and how 
reasonable' it was that they left the defense of the 
murder trial and went there for that same purpose, and 
how easily this could be done with only a few dollars 
in a case such as his. All of these facts and many more 
of a similar and convincing character were actually 
operating upon his mind for a few days before he went, 
and he was fearful of this going to the Bay, but it was 
the best he could do under the circumstances, besides 
he had promised Mr. Goin that he would go down and 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 37 

so he must and did go. It was early in the morning of 
July 13th, 1886, when the victim and Jezebel, who 
could not be- stopped from taking this trip, stepped 
across the street to the Capital Hotel to take the buss to 
the depot, on their way to San Francisco. Mr. Torrence, 
the proprietor of the hotel was there with a wild 
enquiring look upon his countenance, and at the same 
time, wearing such a sickly cunning look as always 
distinguishes a cowardly knave, who is conscious of 
some undeserved harm about to befall a fellow being. 
He is introduced here only as a kind of prelude to his 
infamy in trying to fawn favor by swearing false against 
the liberty of the victim further on in the campaign. 
A Mrs. Dyer was there at the hotel entrance with Mr. 
Torrence, with the look of some great secret in her eye, 
which could easily be interpreted to state the fact and 
say: ''Sullivan, poor man, I know you are betrayed by 
all your hard earned friends. I know they have con- 
spired for your liberty and death. I know you saved 
my husband from State's Prison, but I have left him 
now. Those men are rich, they are wealthy. I must 
cast my lot with them. I must not warn you of your 
danger or perhaps they will likewise ruin me." Now, 
this Mrs. Dyer is given as a fair sample of the kind and 
character these conspirators had under control and the 
power they had over them. 

On the train at Woodland bound for San Francisco 
about ninety miles distant by rail, the first one seen 
that was known to the victim was this same mellifluous 
Bird of the Woodland Mail, who was observed the pre- 
vious evening in close and serious conversation with 
Attorney Craige, and though being well acquainted with 
Mr. Bird, and having sat in the same Masonic lodge 
with him, and never having had any trouble wdth him, 



38 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

it was strange he should refuse to speak with the victim 
and should intentionally keep away from him. These 
uncalled for and unnatural actions on the part of the 
Bird were at once detected and had great weight in the 
victim's mind; in fact he thought then, as the fact 
proved to be, that Bird was along as a kind of bunco 
steerer for the millionaires in running the victim into 
the meshes of ruin. 

On the way down to the Bay at Vallijo Junc- 
tion, a married woman, who a few years before 
had resided at Folson, boarded the train and she 
and this Bird seemed to recognize each other by having 
some business together, though the victim was certain 
they had never met before. The victim now summed 
up the situation substantially as follows: When he knew 
this woman at Folson he had money. She knew it and 
laid pipes to get it by offering to leave her husband and 
go with him, which offer was refused, and she was now 
seeking to revenge herself by going to San Francisco to 
help swear him into an asylum. She was greatly 
chagrined and angered at the refusal of her offer, and 
protested her fine form, good looks, and education. 
Now, Jezebel had adroitly at the beginning of her house- 
keeping with the victim found out about this affair, and 
informed her conspirators of the same, and they, being 
adepts in such business, knowing this Vallejo siren 
would do anything for revenge and a little money, had 
employed her for the purpose already pointed out. And 
this was the situation so far. The victim and spouse 
had now arrived at Oakland and taken the ferry-boat 
to go across the bay eight miles to San Francisco. The 
Bird was flying around in close proximity, but studi- 
ously avoiding any conversation with the victim; this 
was so the victim could never testify to anything that he 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 39 

had said, and that he would not be able to ask him any 
questions that might possibly lead to the victim's bene- 
fit; in short, mum was the only safe rule, accord- 
ing to the advice of the cur. As soon as Jezebel 
got on the boat she was in a great and unseemly rush to 
get ahead and go near the bow of the boat, where she 
sat down directly facing a large man dressed in black 
with a silk hat, who wore rather short, black whiskers. 
As soon as the eyes of this man and those of the victim 
met, mutual detection followed. The silk hat man was 
spotted by the victim as being a detective, and being 
such, he knew he was spotted. As soon as the boat 
landed Mr. Detective and Mr. Bird walked off together 
and went up Market Street a few blocks and turned to 
the right up Pacific Street. The detective becoming 
disgusted with this farcial outrage withdrew from the 
case. 

As soon as Jezebel sat down on the boat in front of 
the detective, the victim knew he had a much more 
desperate plot to outgeneral to save his liberty than he 
had before conceived of, though from Vallejo down he 
was satisfied that the insanity plot was the play, in this 
large city where little noise or comment would be made 
about it, such things being of frequent occurrence there. 
Now he well knew that incarceration in an asylum was 
* his doom if he did not baffle their plans in some way. 
He fully realized that the plot was secretly and deeply 
laid, and backed with all the money necessary to carry 
it into successful execution, and that it would take 
work as fine as the hair discovery to beat this barbarous 
conspiracy and prevent it from landing him in an 
asylum that very day. 

Then, as he loved his liberty, it behooved him to 
thwart, beat, and kill the plot of these criminals who 



40 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

were trying to imprison him to hide and break down the 
evidence of their own criminal acts and immoral con- 
duct. And then the plan seemed to come to him, while 
sitting in the ferry-boat in front of the detective, which 
was worked out in this way : He said to her in a loud 
tone, "We did not sleep any last night, so we will go to 
Swan's Restaurant on Market Street opposite the Palace 
Hotel, and get our breakfast, then go and lie down for a 
while and rest before we begin our business. ' ' This plan 
of eating and sleeping was of course for the purpose of 
getting time to think and watch developments, and if 
possible to lay some other scheme to get away from 
their hot pursuit, and certain ruin. 

Now, this detective, seen on the boat, was a very 
bright, smart fellow, and the victim was satisfied that he 
was either forever disgusted with the outrage or had 
gone to substitute another in his place, and a substitute 
it was, for, as soon as they entered Swan's Restaurant, 
there was another detective seen sitting by the counter 
facing the entrance door, who undertook to closely scan 
the victim as he entered, rather as the butcher picks out 
the animals as they are driven to the slaughter. He 
was of a sandy complexion, smooth shaven, weighed 
about one hundred eighty pounds, but not half so bright 
as the one on the boat ; Jezebel designedly seated herself 
at the table so as to face the detective, while the victim' s 
back was toward him. She was caught shaking her 
head, meaning "No," and there were noticed several 
other actions that the writer must refrain from stating. 

After breakfast, she proposed going to rooms adjoining, 
to lie down, and the detective then arose and went up 
the stairs to the floor of these rooms, whereupon the 
victim declined to go, but instead repaired to 414 Sutter 
Street, and as they were going up the stairs, who should 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 41 

be there at the landing but the same detective seen at 
the Restaurant, with two more persons about the calibre 
and size of police court bailiffs. The victim is now 
ringing the bell and talking to the attendant arranging 
for a room, and one of these bailiffs is knocking on a 
door with a little dude stick ostensibly to gain admit- 
tance, but in reality to size up the victim. 

At this place, room No. 36 on the second floor was 
assigned to them, and about as soon as they had entered 
the same, three or four persons, judging from the sound 
of their footsteps, went into the room adjoining, which 
was separated by a lathe and plaster partition wall with 
a communicating door and a transom over it. Jezebel 
soon laid down on top of the bed, taking the inside next 
to this partition to the room where the thugs had just 
entered. The victim now lopped down on the fore side 
of the bed and silence reigned supreme in each of these 
rooms. 

He soon feigned to be asleep and in about half 
an hour there came three low distinct raps on this par- 
tition wall from the thug room and quicker than the 
assertion can be made Jezebel answered back on the wall 
with three light raps. The victim, realizing the mean- 
ing of these raps was almost as portentous as death to 
him. at once asked her what she was doing by answer- 
ing those raps on the wall. She said, "Oh, I didn't 
know I did. I was asleep. My hand must have fallen 
against the wall. ' ' Then again all was soon still and 
silent, and in quite a long time, say an hour, the victim 
being awake but dozing, heard the creaking of the tran- 
som over the communicating door, and lying where he 
could see it, there as a man's hand working to open it, 
and at this time Jezebel began to slide down near the 
foot of the bed. The victim jumped off the bed, pre- 



42 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

tending he had been asleep, and said, "It's so late we 
can' t do anything today ; we' 11 go over the bay to Oak- 
land to Tubb's Hotel, and stay all night, and you can 
see your friends there, and the next day we will be 
prepared for work. But she was very much averse to 
going over to Oakland, because it would materially 
interfere wilh the insanity plot, while a refusal to go 
would call out some reason, which might again operate 
disastrously to them, so she quietly acquiesced, taking 
her chances on yet effectually doing the victim up. 

It was now nearly three o'clock in the afternoon, and 
while he had been lying there on the bed some very 
hard thinking and close planning had been done to 
protect his liberty, for he knew that if he were ever 
arrested he would have no hope of escape, for the doctors 
and judges would, for the money and favor of the com- 
bine, do whatever it wanted them to do. So he had 
evolved the plan of getting over to Oakland about the 
time the train returned to Woodland, and to board it 
and then he would be safe for that day at least. Just 
as they were leaving room No. 36, he admonished her 
not to tell the landlady where they were going, but 
contrary to this, just as he was paying for the room, 
Jezebel said to the landlady, "Mr. Sullivan is going 
over to Oakland to stay all night at the Tubbs' Hotel." 

Her object, of course, was to inform the landlady so 
that the thugs might be sure of his whereabouts without 
much difficulty, while the victim's object in cautioning 
her was because he knew her so well that he anticipated 
she would do this very thing of giving their whereabouts 
away to the landlady and he thought he would try to 
prevent such a contingency ; for he did not really know 
but that he might miss the train to Woodland and in 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 43 

such case he would go to this hotel, and if he went there 
he was extremely fearful of his safety. 

The detective and bailiffs remained in their room 
until after the victim had left his, and, of course, after 
his departure from the house they found out from the 
landlady where the game had flown to and the detect- 
ive was at the ferry at the foot of Market Street, going 
to Oakland, before the victim was. Now, as soon as 
the victim had gotten just a little away from 414 Sutter 
Street on to Kearney Street, there was the vulture Bird 
with his Vallejo woman in dose proximity to the 
intended prey, and the expressions that came over her 
and Jezebel's faces as they passed and realized that the 
victim was not yet ruined were like the blackest clouds ; 
but not a word was said, for the policy and plan of 
action was mum and secrecy. Now a little distance 
farther on, this physically and morally broken-down 
crook, Amasa Mars before mentioned from Folson was 
met. 

This trio were all in the city this day to prove the 
victim insane, and Mars admitted this about a year after 
when the campaign was over and all was thought to be 
settled and serene. Besides other thugs at about this 
last named time told the victim the same thing, and 
laughediand joked about it saying, "When there was so 
much sugar a man would be a fool not to get some of it. ' ' 

On their way doAvn to the ferry, the victim solaced 
himself by the delusive idea that after he had beat the 
conspiracy in its plans of the day, then these murderers 
would be dispirited and desist and his torture would be 
at an end; but not so, they were more wicked than ever. 
The time had been very luckily calculated for as soon 
as they arrived at the ferry the boat was ready to start 
for Oakland, and as soon as it landed at the pier, there 



44 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

stood the train waiting for its passengers for Woodland, 
Sacramento, and so on up the State. He went off the 
boat and toward this train and Jezebel then said, 
' ' Where are you going ; that' s the wrong way. " " No, ' ' 
he said, "its the right way, and I am going back to 
Woodland." She stood in amazement and was white 
with rage. It was the first and only time she was ever 
seen by him to lose herself. She said, "Going to Wood- 
land; you crazy lunatic, you ought to go to the 
asylum." He said, "Yes, perhaps so, but I will not go 
today. ' ' There was nothing left for her to do but get 
aboard or be left, so she silently and sullenly came on 
the train, and it immediately pulled out for Woodland. 
The intended sacrifice was not made. The whole 
combination of villains and murderers had lost the battle 
of the day and they must now retreat, re-organize and 
adopt some new plan or device of destruction. It was 
now demonstrated that the victim could not be sent to 
the asylum either from Woodland or from San Fran- 
cisco. An entire fresh and new plot must be laid or 
all would be ruined. So the telegraph wires were 
brought into requisition, and the great murder general, 
B. N. Bugby from Folson started for Woodland, and 
was met at the Davisville Junction ten miles from 
Woodland. He was absolutely mum and would have 
nothing to say to the victim, though they were well 
acquainted, he having often been in the victim's law 
office at Folson, but now something unusually strange 
came over him. The victim divined the meanning of his 
appearance as soon as he saw him on the train, and 
hence tried to draw him out but could not. In due 
time, the train arrived at Woodland and Bugby went to 
Ball & Craige's law office, which only confirmed the 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 45 

victim's mind of his further intended ruin by this com- 
bine. 

Jezebel would not sleep in her flat that evening, giv- 
ing as an excuse that it might burn down. Perhaps as 
Bugby's home at Folson had burned and he was now 
in town this bank building might burn. However, in 
order to avoid trouble, room No. 49 at the Craft Hotel 
was hired for her at twelve o'clock at night. One of 
her principal motives was to obey the commands of the 
conspiracy and be in a convenient place to receive her 
murder orders for the next day, that were to be form- 
ulated and decided upon that night by General Bugby 
& Company. 

The victim was up and out about six o' clock the next 
morning, and he noticed his physician, Dr. Ross, from 
Canada, leaving town. This was ominous to him ; for 
he concluded that if they were going to try to murder 
him in some way, or if they succeeded in doing so, one 
of the things they would do would be to fix this doctor, 
and the cheapest way to do so would be to have him leave 
town, and that would relieve him of any connection as 
witness or otherwise in the premises, a perfect alibi 
being the best and surest kind of plan. The next 
ominous fact noted was the early appearance of Dentist 
Dick on the scene. Now he was out at six o'clock, 
when half past eight o'clock was his usual time of get- 
ting to the office. As the victim went up the stairs to 
his home, the Dentist, whose office was in the bank 
building on the opposite side of the hall to Ball's office, 
followed him up. The pursued unlocked the door, left 
the key therein, stepped to the hydrant, and took a 
drink of water. Then he returned to get his key, but it 
was gone. 



46 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

There had been no person on the floor but the 
Dentist, and of course the conclusion was inevitable 
that he took it. The victim immediately accused him 
of so doing, and he stuttered and stammered and with 
eyes slinking like a cat under a bed, he finally succeeded 
in denying it. But when Jezebel returned that morning 
he gave it to her and she tried to slip it into the victim' s 
vest pocket unnoticed, but unfortunately for them she 
was detected in the act. Just why the dentist stole that 
key is hard to say. It might be he was following a 
natural proclivity. It might be that he wanted to take 
a wax impression of it so as to make a duplicate that 
they would have easy access for murder or criminal pur- 
poses, or it might have been accounted for upon the 
general rule that, criminals always do something so low, 
foolish and unaccountable on any reasonable hypothesis 
they are thereby often detected. 

It is now only fair to assume that on this evening of 
July 13, 1886, Bugby, Ball, Craige, Fiske, Heighton, 
Hart, Sprague and others of the conspiracy soon 
assembled to devise a plot to effectually, once and for- 
ever get rid of the victim ; and that they agreed that if 
he was not killed their plans and attempts already had 
to kill him or send him to an asylum would become 
known to the people, also their motive, for the same 
would become known, and then, notwithstanding their 
money, their power with the people would be lost. 
Now, by reason of their especial qualifications for such 
business, they undoubtedly soon agreed that the victim 
must be killed by poison administered by Jezebel who 
could most secretly and effectually, and without sus- 
picion thereafter, adminster the same. And as these 
nondescript villains plotted away the life of one who 
had never done them harm, and to whom they were all 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 47 

profusely expressing their kindness and friendship, and 
were especially showing this to the public, to work off 
suspicion when the murder was done, is it any wonder 
that it is said that truth is stronger than fiction ? Before 
Jezebel had returned on this morning from her night' s 
debauchery, the victim had been to breakfast at old lady 
Beamer's. 

He went there because he was sure of being poisoned 
in some way and he feared it was in the food in 
his home. It was now about 10 o'clock on the 14th 
inst. , and the victim was sitting in the hallway trying 
to evolve some plan to avoid the impending peril of his 
life. He had not been meditating but a short time 
when young Thomas B. Gibson, a drug clerk from 
Zimmerman's store, where Dr. Strong had his head- 
quarters, came up the stairs and went to the office door 
of Dentist Dick. There they reached out their hands 
and something was given by Gibson to Dick. The 
victim saw this. It was the poison which was subse- 
quently given by Dick to Jezebel to administer to the 
victim. The clerk and dentist saw the victim looking 
at them, and to ward off his suspicion of their guilt, 
began talking in a blind mumbling manner, so that 
what was said could not be understood. 

After the clerk left, the victim went out to 
the rear of the house, and as he was returning Mr. 
Dick was seen by him swiftly skipping away from 
the door where Jezebel was. He went in and 
enquired what Dick had been there for. She 
denied that Dick had been there at all, and im- 
mediately began to assume a cry and said a few times, 
"I am afraid something is going to happen." The 
victim never let on that he noticed her, but was fully 
alive to the fact that Dick had left her the poison and 



48 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

that she would try to poison him; also, that her 
assumed cry was no compunction of conscience, but 
rather fear that in some way the poison would miss the 
mark and they Avould all be exposed. He was further 
aware that lying and crying are characteristic of a siren 
when troubled, and particularly when about to do some 
desperate act. 

The victim now again sat down in the hall to smoke, 
watch, and defeat if possible the attempt to poison him, 
that he knew sooner or later would be made by her. 
She knew it was his usual custom to take a sip of water 
after smoking. He had now smoked a few times, and 
after such smoke he had gone to the hydrant in the bath 
room adjoining the kitchen, and there hung a small 
dipper in which he drew the water to drink, but as a 
matter of precaution, he let the hydrant run and then 
rinsed the dipper each time before he drank. But the 
last time he drank from the dipper he did not rinse it 
before using; he had drank from it two or three times 
without harm, and he thought he might be over- 
cautious and would run the gauntlet of drinking by just 
letting it drain, so he turned it sidewise and a little fluid 
now ran out which he took to be water. When he had 
drank, he walked out into the next room a few steps, 
and the sparks began to fly out of his eyes, which 
seemed to look like quick, bright sparks of electricity. 
It was something like the first rays of an electric light 
he saw. 

He then felt like standing and rather stared into 
vacancy for a few seconds ; then he began to have a 
burning sensation in his breast and stomach and grip- 
ing, tightening pains in his breast and lungs. He knew 
that he had just been poisoned from the dipper. She 
had been out and in this room while he was smoking, 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 49 

and no other person was in the house. He immediately 
accused her of poisoning him in the way already 
pointed out.- He especially told her that Dr, Strong 
had prepared the poison for v the clerk to bring up stairs 
to the dentist. 

Jezebel now assumed another cry and wanted him to 
lie down on the couch. He wanted her to go out and 
get a doctor and a stomach pump but she "didn't want 
to go out. ' ' The fact is, she expected he would soon go 
into convulsions and die, — she wanted to keep him from 
being seen by the public so that he would say nothing 
as to who, how or why he was poisoned. Then it would 
be easy to make it appear as a case of suicide by the 
clerk, Dick, Dr. Strong, and others of the combine. To 
help this theory along they had the insanity affidavit of 
the District Attorney, and all in all it would have been 
very little trouble to have buried the villainy of their 
guilt in the grave with their victim. 

Upon her refusal to go for help he lost no time in 
starting to find some kind of antidote, and she followed 
him to the head of the stairs begging him to come back 
and not to go out on the street. As the victim arrived 
at the foot of the stairs he met a poor young lawyer, 
Hudson Grant, who seemed to know of the poisoning 
by saying to the victim, "You had better go home and 
lie down." But how could he know this? Easily 
enough. As soon as the poison was taken, Jezebel, not 
knowing the dipper had been drained, signaled from the 
window to the watchers on the street, and Grant, a pre- 
vious suitor for the hand of beautiful Vic, and now 
defending her father for murder, was sent by General- 
issimo to make a preliminary investigation, and he in 
turn signaled for the chief to come, which he did in a 
great hurry from the defense of the murder trial to pro^ 



50 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

tect Jezebel and see that no cog slipped in the plot. 
We digress here to say that as soon as the combine 
elected Judge Garoutte to the Supreme Court, they 
rewarded young Grant by electing him Superior Judge 
in the place vacated by Garoutte. 

As soon as the victim arrived at the bottom of the 
stairs after he had been poisoned, there at the bank 
corner were about a half dozen of the thugs and secret 
watchers of the combine, who of course had just been 
utilized to get Grant and Beast Ball to his office next to 
the victim's flat. Three doors from there on the same 
side of the street sat Dr. Strong in front of the drug store 
from which the poison came. Thus he was in close 
proximity for the combine's use, and as the victim 
passed him, he did not speak as usual, but cast a leering 
look in an anxious, enquiring manner, as much as to 
say, ' ' I know you have got the dose of poison which I 
fixed for you ; but why are you out here on the street? 

Why didn't you lie down, go into convulsions, and 
die? I would have sworn, if necessary, that I saw 
you come into this drug store and steal the poison." 

The victim went to the office of five or six doctors 
whom he knew, but they were all out of town or could 
not be found. This was the case with all persons whom 
he counted as true friends. The Jesuit Catholic priest, 
John McGinty, was in the bunch and knew of the com- 
bine, which was a strong money supporter of his church. 
Singular, what coincidences; all absent on this poison 
day, but most of them showed up in the afternoon when 
it was surely known that the poison plot had failed. 
He was now feeling comparatively all right, and was 
satisfied that when he drained the dipper the most of 
the poison ran out and he only got a little of it, just 
enough to make him know that he was poisoned. So 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 51 

he thought he would try to get some evidence on Dr. 
Strong and applied to him for an antidote, which the 
doctor gave him in the smallest kind of vial, with some 
white looking fluid in it, and the doctor urged him to 
go right home and take it and lie down. He went 
home, but of course did not take it, but intended to 
have it analyzed at some future time and gave it to one 
Guy St. Louis to keep for him, but could never get it 
back. He happened to give it to St. Louis on the 
evening of the poison day, when he went there to get his 
supper, for he did not eat at home for the next two 
days, the reasons of course were to avoid being poisoned. 

The fact that the victim claimed to have been poisoned 
by the combine as shown was now coming to be known 
by quite a few people, and in the meantime he had 
made up his mind that he could beat the poison game 
by only eating from the same kind of food that she ate. 
And he told his spouse that the next morning, the 17th, 
he would breakfast at home. In the morning, when 
the breakfast was almost ready to be served, a Mrs. 
Hevel, the wife of a wealthy rancher, came in. She 
was state and portly, with raven black hair, eyes deep 
set, black, piercing and as unfathomable as the Dark 
Ages. 

Her husband a few days before had fired five 
shots at a man on account of jealousy. The moment 
this woman entered, he knew that Jezebel and this com- 
bine had conspired another plot to poison him. And 
the Hevel, or Devil, woman had been brought to the 
scene of action as a witness to prove his suicide in case 
they succeeded in murdering him. Mrs. H. was invited 
to breakfast, but of course declined. When Jezebel 
poured the coffee, the victim noticed an unusual twitch- 
ing of the muscles under the right eye. She was trying 



52 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

to appear cool and collected, and under the necessary 
strain on the nerves in such a case, she thus, though in 
a slight way only, showed her agitation. The poison 
was in the coffee, and he then knew it almost as well as 
she did. 

Although she was a great coffee drinker, this 
morning she did not drink any, but only pretended to 
sip a little with a spoon. He ate a light breakfast with- 
out tasting the coffee, and went out, and in a very few 
minutes returned with a bottle to preserve some of the 
coffee for analyzation, but it was gone. She had 
emptied it all in the wash bowl hydrant and was still 
eating at the table. As soon as he mentioned coffee, 
she, ran to the hydrant, turned on the water and washed 
all the coffee grounds away into the waste pipe. Before 
this the coffee grounds were put into a bucket used for 
such purpose. And so this poison plot failed ; also the 
victim' s chance to analyze the coffee. 

Murder plots were now in order and were coming as 
fast as three a day, the details of the second one on this 
Hevel day are briefly told as follows : The victim was 
in the habit, at this stage of the private war, of lying 
down in the afternoon and taking a little sleep. That 
afternoon he was lying there on the couch, but for some 
unaccountable reason he could not sleep. Jezebel was 
in the adjoining room sewing on a machine and sitting 
facing the hall and door which was open and was 
directly in front of the door leading to old man Hunt's 
room, to which it will be remembered she had the keys 
in his absence. She would occasionally look in the 
direction of Hunt's door, and at one of these times the 
victim saw her shaking her head as if indicating "No." 

Then she looked toward the couch where the victim 
lay and saw him watching her. She arose and shut 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 53 

the hall door through which he was looking, and 
almost at once he heard footsteps in the hall at about 
Hunt's door: he jumped up and went to the door of 
his room looking into the hall and saw a strange des- 
perate looking man sneaking down the stairs. He 
looked back at the victim and then hurried down. 
This man was a pal of Craige's before and after this 
time. His name was Thomas Conroy. 

The brief summing up of these facts are: Jezebel 
unlocked the door to Hunt's room, at the dictation of 
the conspiracy, and let the murderer in, and when the 
victim went to sleep she was to inform the assassin and 
then go out to the store for some article and after the 
assassin had come in and cut the victim's throat, the 
knife was to be dropped by his right hand so as to show 
he had committed suicide ; then, the assassin was to go 
down the back stairs and leave the country. Jezebel 
would have been advised by the watchers when to 
return and found the job completed, and by the con- 
spiracy controlling everything, the victim would have 
been buried as a suicide and the evidence of their crimes 
would have gone to the grave with him. 

Now comes the third plot to murder the victim on this 
day. He of course was now watchful and vigilant, and, 
by being so, detected a plan to carry him off to the 
Sacramento river that night to drown him, and then 
have it appear that he was crazy, wandered there and 
destroyed himself. To aid in this transportation, 
Generalissimo bought about fifty feet of new half inch 
rope and had it in readiness for use at his office that 
evening. The victim was to be tied with this and taken 
down the back stairs of his flat to the rear; and if 
Generalissimo was to make a defense about this rope, 
he would neither deny it in to-to, or plead it was pur- 



54 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

chased for some legitimate use. So the victim being 
cognizant of this plan, knew that his life was now in 
the most imminent danger. Being boycotted and 
impoverished by this combine until he did not have a 
dollar nor a gun to help or protect himself with, his 
condition was certainly very unenviable. His case was 
one of murderers to the right of him, murderers to the 
left of him, and murderers in the house with him, and 
all around him. Believing that the jail would best serve 
such refuge from destruction that night he started to go 
there by a round about way down the back street so as 
not to be seen by the assassins. When he was in front 
of the Craft Hotel, just before turning off the Main street, 
Mr. A. C. Turner, the proprietor, was standing in the 
hotel doorway, and he spoke and said: "Why, hello 
Sullivan, how do you do? Where are you going?" 
The victim replied, "Oh, nowhere much," and 
turned and went around the corner without stopping at 
all. When around the corner on College Street, Mr. 
Turner, who had gone through his hotel and come out 
at the side door, again hailed the victim and asked him 
where he was going. The victim then told him that he 
was going to the jail. Mr. Turner said, "See here, you 
must not go that way ; there is danger!" "You know 
I would not say that unless it were true." The victim 
said, "How do you know?" He replied, "Do you see 
that man standing on there. He is hired to kll you. 
He told me so, and said that there was big money in it. 
And you know that they are after you trying to kill 
you." The victim said, yes; that he knew all that, 
and that fellow's name was Quinlin. He had been 
watching and leering at him when he went out to St. 
Louis' to eat and followed him there. If he did not go 
to the jail he would not be alive the next day. Mr. 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 55 

Turner then said, ; 'Come and go back down the street, 
for you will be killed if you go that way. 

So the victim turned back and went to the jail the 
way Mr. Turner suggested and told the officers and 
sheriff at the jail that they were trying to kill him, and 
that he had come there to sleep for safety that night. 

A very pertinent question may now be asked. Why 
did not this sheriff arrest the victim then and keep him 
in jail as an insane man? He had the papers and 
Sprague's affidavit heretofore noted, charging him with 
being crazy. The victim was then, and ever since has 
been crazy, or else his statement was true. The fact is, 
this sheriff was one of the would-be murderers, but 
without orders from Generalissimo he dare not act, and 
they did not then want to arrest him, but to have him 
turned loose, for they had him without a pistol or any 
means of defense and were sure of being able to kill 
him. These statements of Mr. Turner's were after- 
wards repeated in substance by him in the presence of 
two others. 

There was a barber at Woodland at this time by the 
name of Henry Matthews, who had always shaved the 
victim since he came to live at Woodland. During this 
secret war, just before the murder episode about to be 
related, Craige and the barber were seen in close, earnest 
talk on the streets at night. Craige never went there to 
be shaved. 

Quite a long time before this, the victim had heard 
the barber relate a story about one who in Kansas, 
where he came from, had for revenge cut a man's ear 
off while being shaved, and when arrested swore the 
razor slipped and that it was an accident, and thus 
evaded legal punishment. Now, from talk which the 
victim had with the barber he was satisfied that he 



56 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

would do any such similar crime for money, and 
especially when he had money and influential persons 
to back him. 

So, it was on the 16th of July, 1886, a day out of 
order here, that the victim went to this barber shop to 
be shaved, and as he went into the shop, the barber's 
helper was standing by his chair waiting for a customer, 
and Matthews was sitting down honing a razor. As the 
victim entered the shop, Matthews was noticed to flush 
in the face and jumped up, and as the victim was about 
to be seated in the chair for the helper to shave him 
Matthews said, "I'll shave him." The helper immedi- 
ately left the shop by the back door and as he was going 
out he motioned by a longing look with his eyes and 
drawing his hand and finger across his neck to the victim 
to leave. 

The victim lost no time in putting all of these signs 
and facts together and jumped out of the barber chair 
and said "I'll not be shaved now." Matthews stood 
and looked dumbfounded, but never uttered a word. 
The victim was on his guard and knew all these parties 
were participating in this life and death struggle, and 
says there is not a shadow of doubt but that if he had 
let Matthews begin to shave him that day his throat 
would have been cut, and the barber would have sworn 
that the razor slipped, or that the victim grabbed the 
razor, and cut his own throat, and with the District 
Attorney' s insanity affidavit, and none to prosecute but 
all to suppress, a case of suicide or accident would have 
been made out and the true story never would have been 
told. 

After arriving home on this morning of the 18th inst, 
the victim admonished Jezebel in all the ways and with 
all the words that he thought might have any effect 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 57 

upon her not to be a party any further with this 
criminal combination. He especially pointed out to 
her that unless she and they desisted all would event- 
ually be detected and exposed to the whole world, and 
if that was done the whole bunch would be paralyzed 
and in a measure ruined forever. He further told her 
that she might take all they had and go wherever and 
with whomever she chose. 

She replied that she would never admit her own guilt, 
that before she would do so, she would hang by the 
neck until she was dead; that she knew enough to make 
somebody put his foot into the mud as far as she had 
put her's into the mire before she did anything wrong, 
and then they would have to protect her to protect them- 
selves. Then she became vehemently animated and 
said, "You bet your life Mr. Ball is a good man and 
true blue, and he is too smart to acknowledge his 
infamy. Besides he has plenty of money and backers. ' ' 

It was now an absolute certainty and fixed fact in the 
victim's mind that do all he could the persecutors could 
not be induced to desist, for the reason they felt certain 
of being able to accomplish his secret murder in such a 
manner as to make it appear he had committed suicide, 
to a not over anxious public. He was equally certain 
that he would in some way evade their designs though 
he knew not just how. He was also certain that they 
relied on Jezebel to assist them materially by giving 
them advice about his intentions, as he never lied to 
her; but here is where they were fooled. He told her 
only such things as he wanted them to know, such as 
would conserve his own interest and welfare, and such 
as he could use in the future to dovetail this combi- 
nation of facts together. He played their own game on 
them. 



58 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

It was now about noon of July 18, 1886, and Jezebel 
was preparing to go to Sacramento that afternoon, and 
she had expressed a very anxious desire that the victim 
should take a bath, put on clean clothes and then lie 
down and have a sleep. She was then extremely 
solicitous for his cleanly and restful welfare, much more 
so than on the previous night when he had to sleep in 
the jail or be murdered. The wonder is that this 
schooled criminal was silly enough to make such a self 
convicting and horrible request, but crime is always 
lame in some of its perambulations, and so it can be 
accounted for in that way. 

After this, it happened that they were going up the 
stairs over the bank at the same time, and at the foot of 
the stairs on the sidewalk near the bank window there 
stood a big burly negro, who wore a blue flannel shirt, 
with breast open and collar turned down, without coat 
or vest He was certainly the prince of dragons. As 
the victim passed him, he looked a wild, savage look 
and said, "I am the fellow that can do a man up in 
good shape." As he made this remark, he looked 
significantly at Jezebel. Of course, even a crazy man 
could see that this negro was a new assasin brought to 
the front, and that her bath and clean clothes request 
was for the purpose of having the intended corpse in 
good shape, that she might claim that he was well kept 
while with her. This is the true theory. 

The victim's house was easy of access by front and 
rear stairways, and after Jezebel went to Sacramento 
City he went out on the streets, because he dare not 
remain in the house, and as for the business at his 
office that was boycotted and broken up until he had 
none. He was now on the streets, and the assasins 
were all on the alert to murder him, and thus earn the 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 59 

conspiring blood boodle. The negro was leering and 
staring at him, with the look of a demon thirsting for 
blood. Quinlin was peering after and following him, 
though with the ostensible appearance that such was not 
the case. 

Tom Conroy was at Powers corner trying to get a 
sneak shot at him while he was passing. Rudolph and 
another man were on the move with an air of waiting 
for something, and Charles Brown, who had killed 
Jack Stewart with a knife at Knight's Landing in Yolo 
County, in 1872, was rustling around apparently carry- 
ing orders from the conspirators in the Opera House to 
these other assassins on the street. So after the victim 
had made the foregoing observations, he went into the 
Opera House where the murder trial was in progress to 
see if something would not develop in his behalf. 
Brown, Conroy, and the negro followed him in. The 
victim thought he would go out and thus see if these 
assassins would follow him out, and sure enough they 
did, but he was very careful not to let them get very 
near him. He now went up the street toward home, 
and Brown followed after him with his right hand most 
of the time in his hip pocket, and he went over on the 
corner by Linder's store and watched the vicim as he 
went upstairs home. 

The victim remained only a few moments for the fear 
already stated, and returned down stairs where he saw 
John D. Stephens drive up to his bank. The victim 
went over to Stephens and shook hands with him, and 
while doing so, Stephens' hand trembled like an aspen 
leaf. The victim looked at him and saw that he was 
unnaturally white about the furrows of his face, and 
showed much sign of excitement. The victim then 
spoke and said, "John D., why in the name of God 



60 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

don't you stop this intended murder of me. I know 
you know about it, and have the power to stop it by a 
single word. ' ' Stephens evaded a direct reply and said, 
"We are all after the almighty dollar. Judge Arm- 
strong has told me about you. But " 

Here was a millionaire with a cur of a son-in-law who 
had children of whom the millionaire was the grand- 
father. His son-in-law was the libertine already pointed 
out, and it would be only practical human nature for 
him to protect his own household. So in quickly carry- 
ing out this natural inclination in this respect he evaded 
the question of murder and commenced to talk about 
money and Judge Armstrong, who was one of the con- 
spirators from Sacramento City, and a law partner of 
Add. C. Hinkson of the same place, and friends of the 
millionaire for his money. Here is a horrible crime of 
which the millionaire is shown to have had and did 
have a guilty knowledge; and he enjoying the sunlight 
of heaven on this beautiful day, blessed with health, 
strength, and money, claiming to be the friend of a 
man who, he knows, is about to be murdered, is it any 
wonder that he trembles when confronted by the victim? 

After talking a while the victim left the millionaire 
and was walking on Main Street. He noticed that Gas 
Hunt, a native of North Carolina and a friend of this 
combination, was on the street driving a spirited horse 
attached to a piano box bnggy, and that he drove 
around apparently for pleasure, but that he was always 
to be seen close to the victim, with his eyes flaring and 
snapping until one would almost think that they would 
crack. Just hold him in mind he will soon be referred 
to again. The victim had just come from the Opera 
House, where Brown and Conroy had followed him in 
and out again, and was now in front of Simpson' s saloon 



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62 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

on the sidewalk, walking north. The active assassins 
were stationed for duty at the most available points of 
attack, so as to prevent his escape in case of their failure 
to murder him at the first attempt. They were 
deployed as follows and as shown on the accompanying 
diagram. 

The negro was at Siesenvine' s store west of the victim 
on the same side of the street. Conroy was east of him 
on the same side of the street at the corner of Powers' 
saloon. Quinlin was south of him on the opposite side 
of the street. This same Gas Hunt was opposite him 
with his horse and buggy driving slowly the same way 
the victim was going. R. H. Spaulding, Harlan's son- 
in-law, was on the same side of the street, about ten feet 
behind the victim. Rudolph and a stranger were in 
company with Spaulding. He was surrounded by the 
assassins, and handicapped by the insanity papers in 
the hand of the sheriff, so that if he sounded any great 
alarm, he could be immediately arrested as a crazy man ; 
besides being boycotted so that he could not get any 
weapon of defense. He was certainly in a tight, trying 
place for a single individual supposed to be living 
under the protection of the law in this God given 
country. 

While the victim was surrounded as last described, 
Spaulding, Rudolph, and the stranger came sneaking up 
behind him and when they were within about seven feet 
of him, Spaulding said to Rudolph, "Now is your time; 
go for him! Kill him!!" Rudolph and the stranger 
instantly started on a rush for the victim. Rudolph 
whipped out a large knife from the inside of his vest, 
which the victim then thought was the largest instru- 
ment of eath that he ever saw. This all took place in 
about a minute's time. 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 63 

At the first glare of the knife, the victim as quick as a 
red squirrel jumped away into the street behind Gas 
Hunt" s buggy, which had now stopped, and like a streak 
of lightning ran across the street and came in way below 
and east of Quinlin. The assassins and Hunt stood still 
for a few seconds, glaring at the victim on the opposite 
side of the street, and then they all went up to the 
Spaulding Bros.' grocery store; and thus ended the 
murder attempt that time. 

Generalissimo and his band of murderers were again 
defeated. Their Waterloo was every time repeated yet 
they conspired and fought like so many demons. 
Nearly a year and a half after this, the victim and Gas 
Hunt met on a ferry boat crossing at San Francisco, and 
they conversed about this, and Hunt, thinking it was all 
over, told the victim he thought then that the victim 
was wrong and ought to be killed, and had his buggy 
there in which the assassins could escape, but since that 
time he had changed his mind. 

At the time the victim first turned his head to look 
back, when Spaulding spoke his first words to Rudolph, 
he saw John Driscoll and Robert Sears, two bar-keepers, 
running across the street in their shirt sleeves to the 
place where he was. 

A long time after the smoke of this secret war had 
subsided, the victim was gleaning for evidence to rivet 
down the coffin lids of these conspirators he said to 
Driscoll, "Now, the attempt of this Woodland gang to 
murder me has failed and it's all over, and isn't it a 
fact that you and Sears came across the street that day 
that Spaulding and Rudolph were after me, so as to be 
witnesses for the gang?" He said, "Yes, Sullivan, 
that's so." "Did they not agree to pay you to sweai 
that I committed suicide or was the first aggressor, 



64 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

whichever way they might want you to?' ' Driscoll said, 
"Yes, that is about the size of it, but they will never get 
me again. That Craige is a bilk. He gets the money 
and then gives you jumbo promises." 

The victim never questioned Sears about this because 
he knew the truth was substantially as Driscoll had told 
it; besides, Sears subsequently sympathized with him 
and furnished him with much valuable information 
about the combine, and Jezebel being out nights with 
Heigh ton, Ball, Craige, and others, in the oyster cafe 
and in this beautiful court yard. 

In about six weeks after Rudolph attempted to 
murder the victim, he was found dead in Sheriff 
Beamer's grove. Whether he suicided from remorse or 
was killed by the conspiracy will probably never be 
known to the general public. But from what is seen 
here it is proper to say that Rudolph was after the com- 
bine for his pay in attempting to kill the victim, and 
they, rather than pay him, killed him and thus saved 
their money and prevented Rudolph from exposing 
them. While no pity can be given him, yet he should 
not have been murdered, and who can tell but that 
this exposure may result in the punishment of his 
slayers. There are good, respectable people at Wood- 
land. They are in the majority in numbers. "Dead 
men tell no tales" was the rule of conduct adopted by 
these criminals. 

As soon as the Spaulding murder company were away 
as stated, the victim went back to the same side of the 
street from the place where he had just run. The 
assassin Conroy was still at his post, and so to get by 
him without danger, the victim having seen Professor 
Elton of the Hesperin College in his brother's drug 
store, went in and asked the professor to walk with him 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 65 

down to the corner, and after they got there, the victim 
said, "Professor, some time I will tell you why I asked 
you to walk with me, but I dare not do so now. ' ' The 
victim was as good as his word, he told the professor, 
but it was no use then. The professor knew too much 
about it, although he had no guilty knowledge. He 
must keep still or lose his professorship at the college, 
this combine controlling the schools, politics, and all 
kinds of business. It was a man's ruin or death to 
antagonize them, or any of them, for they were all like 
a nest of hornets or vipers. 

The victim then went into the Opera House and the 
Court was about to adjourn. After the court had 
adjourned the victim went to Sheriff Beamer and told 
him all about how he had just been attacked by the 
assassins, and said he wanted the protection of the 
Sheriff' s office, or a six-shooter, and if he would let him 
have one he would ask no protection, but take care of 
himself. He also informed the Sheriff how the con- 
spirators had boycotted him until he could neither beg, 
borrow, nor buy any kind of fire arms. Then the 
sheriff and he left the Opera House together and he 
immediately saw the assassins Conroy, Quinlin, and 
the negro and pointed them out to the sheriff. About 
this time Craige came near and commenced a sarcastic 
grin, and the victim then resolved anew that at some 
time the laugh would be on the other side. 

He was now comparatively safe for the assassins 
knew he was with the sheriff for protection, and for 
him to be murdered under the sheriff's protection, and 
under all the circumstances, would be social and politi- 
cal murder of the sheriff, a condition of affairs they 
could not afford, because they could not allow such a 
useful tool to be destroyed. Question : Why did not 



66 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

the sheriff arrest either the alleged insane man, or the 
alleged assassins at that time? He had the papers for 
the alleged insane man's commitment, why not arrest 
him? He must be crazy or else these assassins had 
tried to murder him. The true answer is that to have 
arrested the victim would have saved his life and the 
conspiracy wanted to kill him, and the sheriff was 
simply obeying the orders of Generalissimo and com- 
pany. 

Can the human mind grasp the disgrace that this 
band of conspirators has brought on American civili- 
zation? Will the decent people of the little city of 
Woodland look upon the situation as it really was for a 
moment and see ; that at the very time these assassins 
were on the street trying to do bloody murder for money 
alone, and the money that was paying them came from 
one who was then sitting at the people's bar of justice 
being tried for his life, for having premeditatedly 
murdered one of the most honorable and honored sons of 
the Golden West, and sent him in his early youth to 
his Creator, the slayer knowing that his extreme wealth 
would make a successful defense for him; and this 
same person now on trial for his life, trying to add 
another sneak murder to his criminal record, by the 
use of his money; prompted thereto by false friends, 
false affidavits, a villainous court, a perjured District 
Attorney, and a gang of lawyers and others, coated and 
seared with nearly every crime known to the criminal 
category. Can these outlaws be seen as they are, going 
through the farce of trying and acquitting one murderer 
and at the same time committing another murder? 

Can the mind conceive or the pen portray the intrinsic 
wickedness of this criminal combination, making a 
mockery of justice and law by the farce of a trial for the 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 67 

murder of young Craft, and at the same time attempting 
by the use of all treachery and money to murder another 
innocent man to hide the evidence of their own lust and 
sins? Is it supposable, that if this gang were relegated 
to perdition, would not the devil have scruples about 
disgracing the realms of his satanic kingdom with such 
traitorous beings? And would he not be fearful that 
they there, as here, would intrigue, conspire, and 
dethrone him, and even attempt to murder him? 

The victim had gone over to the Court House jail with 
the sheriff, and when Jezebel returned from Sacramento 
City that evening this man Hinkson came over with 
her, she having been at his office and the Clunie build- 
ing with him that afternoon. Hinkson came over to 
the victim's refuge about eight o'clock, and seemed to 
know all about the murder attempt that afternoon 
before the victim said anything about it. The fact is 
he knew all about it even before Jezebel went over to 
his office, and had now heard of its failure and came 
over to assist in organizing another murder scheme 
which will soon develop. 

It might be stated here that Jezebel went to Sacra- 
mento to see him; also to give the assassins a better 
chance and to prove an alibi for herself. She was the 
shrewdest conspirator in the whole bunch, and shrewd 
enough not to tell them anything about her previous 
criminal and generally bad record. Well, they now 
left the court house and went over to the flat, and the 
disappointment of this twain was easily seen. This was 
particularly noticed by the blarney they attempted to 
give him when discussing the murder attempt of the 
afternoon. They brought over the proclamation of 
Governor Stoneman, calling an extra session of the 



68 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

legislature to convene the 20th inst. at Sacramento City 
twenty-eight miles from Woodland by rail. 

The victim was the enrolling clerk of the Senate at 
the last regular session of the legislature. They both 
urged' him to go over and assume the duties of this office. 
He told them his office was not a hold-over office, and, 
besides, this being an extra session, there would 
probably not be any enrolling clerk elected. In this 
he was giving them their own medicine of duplicity, for 
he intended to go over and get the office if possible, 
which was worth $240 a month. 

But he knew that if they thought there was any 
chance for him to get it, the conspirators had power 
enough to, and would defeat him ; for they would know 
that if he got this office he would have money and a 
pistol and their conspiracy jig would be up. He was 
also thoroughly well aware that the desire to have him 
go over to Sacramento was so the conspiracy could get 
a new battle field for their private war, as they were 
now getting very uneasy about their exposure on 
account of so many recent failures, and they were par- 
ticularly desirous of transferring the field of action to 
some other place than Woodland. 

On the afternoon of the 19th inst, everything being 
planned and set in order for his assassination on the 
following day, as he was going over to the legislature, 
Hinkson left his murder friends and went home to 
Sacramento City. The next morning the victim left 
Woodland on the six o'clock train, and by force of 
reasoning from established facts, he knew they were 
going to make another attempt to murder him that day. 
But where, when or how, of course, he could not tell 
until something more had developed in that regard. 

Preyious to leaving his home that morning, the victim 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. -69 

had noticed a cigarette fiend passing and repassing his 
home and glaring up at the windows as if to get a sign. 
This was a newly .hired assassin, and by his dude, gam- 
bler, cut-throat style, it was very easy to spot him. 
When the victim was ready to go to Sacramento the hotel 
buss was gone, so he took a seat in the express wagon, 
and immediately the dude assassin came forward and 
sat on the other side by the driver. As they passed 
the corner, he looked back and there saw Jezebel at 
the window taking what she supposed was a last look 
at the one she had conspired to kill. But her real 
anxiety was to see that he had gone rather than to get 
a last look at him. 

On arriving at the depot, conscientious Fiske was 
there noticed moving sneakingly about as though he 
wanted to steal something from the platform of the 
depot without being caught at it. He is a very con- 
scientious gentleman and goes toddling along to church 
every Sunday morning with his book under his arm, 
with conscience oozing out of every pore of his hide. 

He is so very conscientious that when being examined 
as a juror in the Harlan case he said his conscience 
would not let him do justice he was so prejudiced 
against the murdered man. This was a great bluff to 
ingratiate himself into the favor of the millionaire 
for gain. He was so conscientious that he tried 
to get the victim to drink liquor, as he used to do years 
before this time, so he might get drunk and get killed. 
Yes, he had a great conscience; the same as that of a 
hyena digging up the corpse from a newly made grave. 
Along with Fiske were two noted thugs of the town, 
Henry Skinner, a native of Vermont, and Henry 
Wallace. This last fellow' s eyes resembled the isinglass 
in coal stove when the gas is burning off. They snapped 



70 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

and sparkled and presented a red, black and blue color 
streaked up and down. The corners of his mouth would 
draw down and close and his under jaw would protrude. 
Such was the general appearance at all times when seen 
that day. He was the most intelligent and desperate 
out of the whole lot of about thirty hired assassins 
engaged in this private war. It will be understood the 
real conspirators stood high, claimed respectability, and 
really controlled the town and county, and of course 
could not personally strike the fatal blow. 

The train was a local affair with only two passenger 
cars, and this morning the passengers were all in the 
front car. When the train was within a few minutes 
of the Davisville Junction, the victim went back into 
the rear car and Wallace immediately followed him, 
whereupon, the victim started to return to the front car 
and Wallace commenced to talk foolish, impudent 
matter for the purpose of keeping him in the car, so as 
to get a chance to kill him just about the time the train 
stopped at Davisville ; where, it was after wards known, 
the conspirators had a team ready for the assassins to 
flee the country with, as soon as the murder was com- 
mitted. It was their plot to kill the victim at this 
small place early in the morning, and then the assassins 
could easily have escaped in a wagon. The judge, 
sheriff, district attorney, and nearly all the county 
officers being in the conspiracy, there was really not 
much of any danger to them. The real conspirators 
could prove an alibi or anything else they desired and 
nothing would have been done. It was in a way a real 
bright plot. 

The train stopped here at Davisville and it had to 
back up and make a curve to go to Sacramento City. 
Now, before it did this, three other and new assassins 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 71 

made their appearance. They were Frank Welch, 
Frank Meyers, and Charles Grey. They had come 
down from Woodland that morning in the wagon, and 
Fiske was there with Harlan's blood boodle which the 
assassins were to receive after the killing. 

At Davisville the victim stepped out on the platform 
of the first car, and Grey immediately came sidling up, 
to him from the railroad platform, with his right hand 
in his short coat pocket, and from all the facts the 
victim thought it would be more conducive to his wel- 
fare on the inside of the car among the passengers, 
where he went, and Grey did not get a chance to earn 
his boodle. 

The train now commenced backing out to get on the 
track for Sacramento. Fiske and Skinner were sitting 
in the front of the car, the victim was in the extreme 
rear of the car, and Wallace was in the front of the rear 
car. The train had moved but about two lengths of 
itself when Wallace came out of his car onto the rear 
platform of the car where the victim was, and then he 
kept motioning to Skinner and alternately looking at 
him and the victim. Skinner's attention was now 
wanted, for the killing time had come. 

The train was slowly moving, the wagon ready to 
run the assassins off, and money bags was aboard to 
drop them their money as soon as the job was done. 

But Wallace could not get the attention of his pal at 
this opportune time. Skinner had either forgot the 
part he was to play or his courage failed him. So 
Wallace run his hand into his hip pocket and whipped 
out a revolver, and just at this time the victim jumped 
in behind an old man and kept him in range between 
Wallace and himself. Wallace smiled a sickly murder- 
ous smile, for he instantly knew he was foiled and went 



72 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

back to his car and remained there until the car arrived 
at Sacramento City. 

Welch, Meyers, and Grey followed over to Sacramento 
City with the team and they all remained two days 
trying to get a secret whack at the victim, and finally 
they returned to Woodland to be supported by poor, 
fallen women. This band knew that the victim always 
put up at the Western Hotel while in the city, so Wallace 
and Skinner got into the hotel buss, supposing the 
victim would be fool enough to do likewise, and then 
perchance they might get a chance at him. He thought 
he knew about how to work these thugs, and so acted as 
though he were to take the buss until it finally drove 
to the hotel with them in and him out. 

Fiske hurried away to the office of Bugby to report 
the failure and communicate the defeat to General- 
issimo at Woodland, who now deputized General Bugby 
to take command of the brigands at Sacramento City. 
The attempted cunning of these conspirators will be 
noticed by their always trying to keep as far away as 
possible from the scene of the intended murder, so if 
necessary, they could prove an alibi ; also, in case the 
victim did survive, anything he might say involving 
them would appear all the more impossible by reason 
of their absence at such times ; and again, their pro- 
fessed friendship would be a shield to them. 

At the Sacramento railroad depot, Tim Lee, an 
acquaintance of the victim, was on duty as depot officer. 
They stepped to one side and the victim told him all 
about how the assassins had tried to kill him at Davis- 
ville, and he pointed them out to Lee as they were in 
the hotel buss. On account of the boldness of these 
fellows, Mr. Lee was averse to believing it at first, and 
said, "Why, Sullivan, this can't be true; yet I know 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 73 

you well enough so that I must believe it. ' ' Mr. Lee 
is a native of Albany, N. Y. , and months after this time, 
at different times,* he told the victim that his killing 
story was all true, and that it was an outrage, but that 
nothing could be done against such a power. 

At the time the victim Avas ready to walk over into 
the city from the depot, he observed Mr. Audette, a 
Woodland merchant, a respectable gentleman not in 
with the gang, and he requested him to walk with him, 
knowing that if the assassins were met they would not 
dare make the attack in the presence of such testimony 
against them. This request was also made for the pur- 
pose of adding strength and authenticity to this story ; 
for it will be recalled the victim was noting all the facts 
as they occurred, so that in case he lived he could write 
them all up for sale, etc. Wallace had now been over 
into the city and was returning for his lost victim, but 
on seeing him with Mr. Audette he dodged into a saloon 
next to the Saddle Rock Oyster House, on Second Street. 

They did not go by Wallace' s retreat, but turned a 
corner and went to the Western Hotel and had break- 
fast, and while at breakfast, the victim saw Skinner for 
the last time peering in through the hall window at 
him. Skinner was a green leek, one of the would be 
terribles, and was now discharged as an assassin for his 
failure at Davisville. At this city there was a sensational 
daily published by the McClatchey Bros., called "The 
Sacramento Bee." It was into this conspiracy, and in 
trying to further the murder plans it published an article 
that evening, singing the song of the old chestnut that 
the victim was as crazy as a bed bug, thus bending the 
pregnant hinges of the knee, etc. 

Fiske went from the office of Bugby to the Insurance 
office of Al. G. Hogland, a native of New Jersey, who 



74 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

was immediately enlisted in the ranks of the assassins. 
Hogland was a large young man, probably weighing 
two hundred pounds, with a round bullet-head, small, 
deep-set, squinty eyes, which were neither black, blue, 
gray, not any other usual color. They were, more than 
anything else, like the magnified eyes of a rattlesnake. 
The victim used to liken his fight for life with these 
conspirators to the old saying of fighting the devil with 
his own fire ; for he made no open break with them but 
fought with the same pretended friendship that they 
were using against him. 

So about nine o'clock this morning he went to 
Hinkson's law office and sounded him, by telling all 
about the attempted murder at Davis ville that morning. 
Hinkson was true to his proclivities and criminal friends 
at Woodland, and by far-fetched sophistry, tried to 
argue that the victim was mistaken about this attempt. 
While they were talking, Hogland came and posted 
himself at the foot of the stairs leading to Bugby's office, 
which was nearly opposite Hinkson's office and there 
remained watching the stairway, leading to the office of 
Hinkson, and the victim then and there pointed him 
out to Hinkson as one of the newly hired assassins, but 
said he dare not shoot unless he had the absolute drop, 
for all hired assassins were cowardly brutes. 

Now when the victim was tired of unwinding the 
tangled ball of Hinkson's infamy, he left the office and 
went out on the streets, which, in a sense, was alive 
with new assassins. He spotted thirteen of them. 
They would look and leer and follow him and try in 
every conceivable way to sneak up and get a secret 
chance at him. They were nearly all of the Barbary 
Coast element. 

After a while the victim went over and sat down on 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 75 

the K Street porch of the Capitol Hotel. Presently 
Hogland came from the Golden Eagle Hotel on the 
opposite side of the street, where he was seen looking 
out of the window when the victim sat down, and in a 
quick, sneaky kind of way he passed into the Capitol 
Hotel and was getting into position so as to be behind 
the victim and shoot him through the glass door. The 
victim turned around, facing him and Hogland slunk 
away. 

There is no doubt that these pages would never have 
been written if the victim had not turned as he did. 
Wallace, soon after this, attempted the same game and 
was foiled in about the same way. He then went and 
sat in the cigar store of Emil Scheunert, adjoining the 
hotel, and watched with desperation on his countenance 
for a chance to assassinate. Emil noticed Wallace and 
others there whispering around and afterwards said he 
heard enough so that he knew they were trying to kill 
the victim, but that as a matter of business he kept his 
mouth shut about it. 

It was now time to go to the State Capitol. The 
officers and clerks would be elected that afternoon. It 
will now be recalled that the victim told Jezebel and 
Hinkson at Woodland that there would not be any 
enrolling clerk elected at this extra session, and after he 
came to Sacramento that day he had told Hinkson and 
Judge Armstrong the same thing, and he made no 
application to any of the senators for the office until as 
will be seen further on. He was personally well and 
favorably known to each of the senators as their votes 
will soon show. If he had said anything to the senators 
about this office it might have become known to the 
conspirators and their allies at Sacramento, and then 
they would have rallied and surely defeated him. 



76 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

The Senate was now in session and Senator Kellog 
had introduced a resolution, which passed, naming the 
officers and clerks to be elected, among which was that 
of Enrolling Clerk. When it was about time to fill that 
office, the victim went to the desks of the Senators W. 
H. Kellog, Ignacio Del Vallie, Pat Reddy and Clay W. 
Taylor, and requested each to nominate him for the 
office, and they each promised to do so. 

Under other circumstances he would not have re- 
quested so many to have nominated him, but now this 
office meant life or death to him, and he could not 
afford to take any more chances in getting it than he 
had too. It meant money to protect himself with from 
assassination. He must have it or be killed, and at the 
same time if these Senators had been worked on by the 
conspirators, he never would have gotten it, so he was 
in a very anxious place about this time. He believed 
then as now that the gods help those who help them- 
selves, and he so acted. 

Senator Taylor and Del Vallie both arose at the same 
time to make the nomination. The President of the 
Senate recognized Senator Taylor who made the nomi- 
nation, and the victim was then and there elected with- 
out a dissenting vote. Wallace, Hogland and six other 
thugs were present at the time of his election. He was 
now recognized by the whole people of the State through 
these senators, and stood in official importance the peer 
of any of them. This was quite a raise for the con- 
spirators alleged *crazy man. It rather knocked the 
bottom out of the district attorney's insanity affidavit, 
and the libel the Sacramento "Bee" published that 
evening about him. The Senate must have been in a 
very humiliating position to have elected an enrolling 
clerk personally known to all of them, and not one even 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 77 

suspecting he was crazy, if he was crazy. This was a 
blow in the sore plexus of the conspiracy. They were 
again beaten in their murder plots, but yet they did not 
give up whipped. 

Financial aid was now secured to the victim by an 
eight dollar a day salary. The thugs present realized 
the situation, and hence the look of disappointment, 
revenge and villainy mingled and shown on their faces. 
The despair of these thugs could only be equaled by the 
black cap of death being placed over so many villains as 
the rope was being placed around their necks to pay the 
penalty of murdering an innocent person. 

Just after the election, the victim walked over to the 
place where these thugs were sitting just outside the bar 
of the Senate and said, "You thugs and murderers had 
now better go home and quit the business, for you can 
never get the drop on me in secret. I am now beyond 
your reach." They hung their heads and flushed, and 
the blood raised in their faces until they turned nearly 
black. They assumed a grin and were perfectly silent. 
Not one of them spoke a word in their defense, except 
Wallace who said, "We'll get you yet." 

The Senate having adjourned, the senators were just 
leaving the Capitol together with other persons who 
were there as usual on such occasions. The victim was 
now about to take his departure which was noticed by 
the thugs, and Wallace followed him to the door on 
Tenth Street. The victim was alone and turned back 
and waited until he found a gentleman who was going 
out, and as they walked out, the victim kept a close 
watch upon either side of the walk so that Wallace could 
not sneak upon him. Wallace was hidden in the shrub- 
bery, and after they got nearly out of the park, the 
victim looked back and saw Wallace sneaking out from 



78 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

among the shrubs. In a short time, Wallace was at 
his cigar stand, and failing to get a chance to earn his 
blood-money, went to Woodland on the evening of the 
second day. 

It was thought that the enemy would now see the 
utter folly in trying to murder the victim and would 
quit. To ascertain what possible knowledge he could 
on that point, the victim went from the State Capitol to 
the offices of Armstrong & Hinkson and informed them 
that he had just been elected enrolling clerk of the 
Senate, and finally told them that he was now beyond 
the reach of all murderers and while the conspiracy had 
boycotted him and had him broke, he now had eight 
dollars a day for that day and would get the same for 
every day in the week, and that he would soon have a 
gun, and then he would not run an inch from them. 

When the victim announced the news of his election, 
Judge Armstrong's eyes flashed like the eyes of a tiger 
in a dark cage. Hinkson excused himself by saying, 
"Sullivan, talk to Judge Armstrong and tell him all 
about this affair," and then he went out and up the 
stairs to Bugby's office to consult with the Sacramento 
General about future plans of destruction. The victim 
talked for a long time and told Judge Armstrong a great 
deal of the attempted murder history of himself up to 
that time, and tried to impress him with the fact that 
they would never succeed with their plans, because they 
were criminally wrong, and the victim was the one 
sinned against and lied about. Armstrong listened 
with restlessness and replied by saying, "Ball is your 
friend." Now, Ball's name was not used up to this 
point, hence the defense of Ball being interposed with- 
out any attack upon him being made was certainly a 
confession of a guilty knowledge. 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 79 

The judge then and there laid a plan to poison the 
victim, and to bring it about said, " Sullivan, you ought 
to have a tonic like I am taking from Dr. Snyder. I 
will see him and have him fix you up a bottle. It will 
not cost you anything. I know he will straighten you 
right out. Don't you have a burning sensation in the 
stomach and about the liver?" The victim replied that 
his stomach, lungs, liver, and lights were all right and 
as sound as a dollar. Even after this sharp rebuke the 
judge kept right along playing him for a fool, asking 
him about his stomach and urging him to take a tonic 
from his doctor, Snyder. 

So the next time he went into the judge's office, 
Judge Armstrong went out, and in about the time that 
it would have taken to send a telephone message to the 
doctor and return to the office, Judge Armstrong came 
back, and very shortly the erudite Doctor made his 
appearance. Judge Armstrong then commenced a 
speech wherein the victim was described as the sick man 
who wanted a tonic, and the person whom the doctor 
had been called to see. With unuttered and unutter- 
able contempt for those two thugs, the victim left the 
office, and as he did so they gazed at him with a look of 
disappointed vengeance. 

The conspirators and thugs were so many in number, 
worked so fast and devised so many foolish plans, that 
it was very difficult for the victim to detect and act in 
the most judicious way in relation to all their attempts. 
Such was the case in relation to the judge and doctor 
this day. He should have taken the doctor's little 
bottle of tonic and had it analyzed. Yet if it had been 
half poison it would not have made any difference to 
him, for the money power would have exculpated them 
before the courts, and in the public press. 



80 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

) 
Now, on this first day of the session, Hinkson not 
having returned and Armstrong having plead his and 
Ball's guilt, the victim went over to the Capitol Hotel, 
in other words the political hotel, where he was going to 
stay that night and where he thought perchance he might 
hear or see something to his benefit. The thugs were 
around with an air of vengeance, and along toward night 
Bugby, Hinkson, R. D. Stephens, and Judge McFar- 
land, who was Hinkson' s brother in-law, were hanging 
around and conversing together with apparent great 
interest, very unnaturally so. Of course the fact is, 
they had to rearrange their plots since their victim was 
elected enrolling clerk, and they were now attending to 
the duties with the active thugs. 

This Stephens was no relation to the Woodland 
banker, but was a politician and postmaster at the city 
now. He and the victim were old acquaintances and 
had worked in politics together. The victim met him 
here and said "Russ, they are trying to murder me in 
secret and you can stop them. They are all wrong and 
I want to explain it to you." Stephens said, "I do 
not want to talk. I do not want to hear any more about 
it." The victim quickly said, "But here is my life at 
stake and in danger by a band of rich people. ' ' At this 
point, Stephens passed into the hotel without saying 
another word. So, from what had passed and from all 
the circumstances, the victim saw that Stephens had 
cast his lot with the criminals. 

This man Russ Stephens is an awful man. The 
victim was a delegate to the State Convention in 1880, 
and helped to make Stephens a delegate-at-large to this 
convention, and to send him as a delegate from there to 
the National Convention that year; also, materially 
assisted in making him a delegate to the State Conven- 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 81 

tion in 1882 at San Jose, and there supported him for 
the nomination for State Comptroller, and also sup- 
ported his friend, Clay W. Taylor, for governor against 
General Stoneman. Now, when the victim's life is 
sought in so many ways as here told, Stephens turns 
the marble face. Just another case of man's ingratitude 
to man. God have mercy on Stephens and the gang; 
they realized not what they did. 

Although the victim had been elected enrolling clerk 
this day, his troubles about the same were not all over 
by any means because of the charge which the Sacra- 
mento "Bee" made that the victim was crazy. The 
trouble was that the Senate might pay some attention 
to this charge and refuse to let him take the oath of 
office the next day. But the conspirators did not know 
enough about the organization of the senate, or over- 
looked it, and the Senate knowing the charge was false, 
the victim qualified without objection. Nevertheless, 
he was greatly and secretly worried, and as an antidote 
to this libel, he concluded that he could secretly use 
Hinkson to counteract whatever effect it might have, 
Hinkson could get anything printed in the next paper, 
' ' The Record Union, ' ' so the victim got on the street car 
to go to his home and have him put in an article, all 
ready prepared, killing the "Bee" charge. 

Hinkson had it put in, but in such a haggled shape 
that the correction was more injurious than the original 
charge. Now, to add a little more fire to the flame, 
when he took the street car, three of the thugs also went 
aboard and he knowing their intention was to kill him 
at the first good chance, of course added to his trouble. 
As luck had it at the next block T. K. Berkey, an ex- 
county clerk of Sacramento County, with whom the 
victim was well acquainted, boarded the car and they 



82 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

both sat down together, and he then told Mr. Berkey 
that he had conferred a great and unconscious favor 
upon him and he would tell him sometime what it was, 
but for the same reasons that he dared not tell Prof. 
Elton at Woodland, as you will recall, he dared not 
tell at that time Mr. Berkey, although afterwards he 
talked with the ex-clerk who then knew in a general 
way about the gang and was greatly shocked and dis- 
gusted. 

As a further sample as to how Generalissimo & Co. 
operated, we show : William Linn, a colored man, gave 
evidence on the Harlan trial, and swore that he saw 
the deceased Craft about half an hour before the shoot- 
ing going through the Hesperian College grounds, 
near the place where he was killed, with a pistol in his 
hand in open view. This testimony was evidently false, 
and was given to serve as a basis for Harlan, the slayer, 
to build a structure of self defense upon. So to pay 
this negro off, without using their own money, Ball & 
Co. sent him over to this session of the legislature to get 
the position of porter, but the first papers of the man 
were not strong enough. 

So Col. Harding came over with the full endorsement 
of the conspiracy, and Lieut. -Governor Dagget, who 
was a great friend of Ball and belonged to this political 
gang, appointed the negro porter of the Senate. Now, 
we may say this: Here is a lieutenant-governor, in 
order to stand in with a gang of murderers, paying off a 
negro for false testimony by appointing him porter of 
the Senate; also placing him where he might have a 
chance to watch and try to kill an innocent man that 
this powerful conspiracy wanted destroyed for reasons 
already stated. 

We are on the second day's session of the legislature, 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 83 

and Hogland tried his sneak game exactly in the same 
place and way as yesterday and was likewise foiled. 
The victim had now gone over to the offices of Arm- 
strong & Hinkson to try to gather the points of the next 
plot, when for some reason the thugs were thicker than 
ever, and the victim thought of the saying, truth is 
stranger than fiction, and these conspirators were prov- 
ing it. After talking awhile, Hinkson said, "Sullivan, 
you ought to sleep in a more quiet place than the Capitol 
Hotel. I think the State House would be better." 
What a foolish, self-convicting proposition this was 
for Hinkson to make. But his desire to murder over- 
came his judgment. The State House was a nice, quiet 
place in a less frequented part of the city and more 
accessible to the thugs. The Capitol Hotel was the 
rendezvous for politicians, the Woodland gang with 
their Sacramento contingent, and now they wanted to 
murder the victim at the hotel and they did not want 
their own hotel stained with the outrage. 

After dinner at the Capitol Hotel this day, the victim 
had the same kind of burning sensation in his stomach 
as described by Judge Armstrong the day before. These 
feelings were the most intense just after he had eaten 
his soup. He noticed the Irish steward as soon as he 
had ordered this soup go with the waiter who had the 
order to the kitchen, and when he was eating it, it was 
evident from the looks of the waiters that there was 
something going on unusual. There are a great many 
other facts and details that could be stated to show that 
this soup contained some kind of poison. 

Now, after awhile, the victim went to Armstrong's 
office, and he seemed greatly worried. He would look 
at the victim with amazement as if to say, "Why, are 
you alive. I was told the poison in your soup would 



S4 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

kill you ! Are you a spirit ?' ' Then he commenced 
repeating softly to himself, "God moves in a mysterious 
way, His wonders to perform; He puts his foot upon 
the sea and rides upon the storm. ' ' He told Armstrong 
that his quotation was true and to remember it, for he 
should yet prove the application to his case, where they 
were all trying to destroy him, but that all the money 
in Woodland could not kill him or send him to any 
asylum. Armstrong sneeringly replied, "Money is 
powerful, and I know that it has hung innocent men 
herein California." The victim said, "Yes; but he 
was not going to the grave as a ransom for the crimes 
of others. ' ' 

Frederick Cox is a native of England and has been a 
resident of Sacramento for a great number of years. He 
was now State Senator and a banker worth many millions. 
He possessed thousands of thousands of acres of land 
over which roamed lowing herds of cattle and neighing 
horses. His wealth alone gave him great prominence 
in the State. The victim had been his political sup- 
porter for years, the same as that of Postmaster 
Stephens, but now from the Senator's treatment and 
actions the victim suspected his loyalty, and to test the 
same, as he met the Senator on the afternoon of this 
day, he said: "Well, Senator, they haven't got me yet. 
I have qualified and I think I can stand them off 
and keep them from killing me at least." The 
Senator replied: "Well, they may get you yet; 
there is time enough. ' ' So, then, the Senator showed 
that he had gone into camp with the army and plead a 
guilty knowledge of the intended murder. ' ' 

It was now nearly evening on the last .day referred to, 
and in addition to the hyenas snapping at the heels of 
the intended corpse, Oscar Marshall was noticed as a 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 85 

wistful beast thirsting for blood and boodle. He, like 
negro Linn, had succeeded in getting Lieut. -Gov. Dagget 
to appoint him porter of the Senate, and was a valuable 
acquisition to the gang, having come from the city of 
Stockton where he held a place that qualified him to do 
crime and hide the evidence of his guilt. The General' s 
aids, rank and file of the combine were now assembled 
around the Capitol Hotel. The victim was there 
mingling in the midst of the throng, apparently uncon- 
cerned, yet watchful and trying to catch some word or 
act by which he could determine the next attempt to be 
made on the his life. 

Now, just after dark this evening, the proprietor of 
this hotel, Mr. Blessing, could not be found in any of 
his usual places about the hotel, and the reason then 
assigned and subsequently confessed was that, inasmuch 
as he pretended to be the victim' s friend, and knowing 
that he was to be murdered that night, and fearing that 
he might say something about so many thugs being 
about his hotel in his presence and in the presence of 
respectable strangers there, also about the intended 
murder, Blessing therefore to avoid such a compromis- 
ing contingency kept out of the way. 

Preparatory to the intended tragedy of the evening, 
Russ Stephens came about eleven o'clock and went 
directly into the Capitol Hotel where he and his wife 
boarded and roomed, and he took her on his arm and 
walked off toward J. Street. After this occurrence, the 
victim concluded to take his chances and get some other 
place to stay that night. For he now knew that he was 
to be spirited away from the Capitol Hotel that night 
and killed; hence, Stephens came and took his wife 
away so that she might not hear the life and death 
struggle or be a possible witness. Besides, for other 



86 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

imaginable reasons, he did not want her there that 
night. 

Peter Byrnes, Stephens' faithful secretary, was on 
duty to watch the victim and see that at all times he 
could be located. Now, about twelve o'clock Byrnes 
had received an invitation to get some free beer and 
went into the saloon on the opposite corner, and as the 
foolish dastard went through the saloon door he looked 
back to see that the intended corpse was in its proper 
place. The victim now immediately left the porch of 
the hotel where he had been sitting for a long time, 
and went a crooked, zigzag route to the Western Hotel, 
for the purpose of obtaining lodgings. He thought 
they would not find him there for one night at least, and 
if they did, it would so conflict with their Capitol 
Hotel plan that an attack on him could not be made 
that night. Upon entering the hotel, the victim saw 
four suspicious looking fellows hanging around the office 
counter talking to Felix Conroy, the night clerk. None 
of them had the apparent look and character of a bold, 
bloody bandit, who would take his life in his hands for 
money, but had the appearance of the sneak thief, 
cowardly kind of person, who would only murder a 
man when asleep or when they had the absolute drop 
on their victim. 

They all sized up the new arrival and kept moving 
about suspiciously while he was registering and 
arranging for a room. One of them had a handkerchief 
over his right eye for the purpose of disguising himself. 
Just why he should disguise himself was never known 
to the victim, for he was a stranger to him. He was 
the most vicious-looking of the four. 

He suspected they were there for the purpose of 
murdering him in case he came there to sleep, and 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 



87 



would probably make the attempt after he had gone to 
bed; but he had to sleep some place so he might as 
well take the chances, or there was a possibility of his 
being mistaken. Besides, he thought all the hotels he 
might go to would have thugs stationed at them as at 
this one. The question might be here asked, Why did 
he not inform the police? The true answer is that there 
was money enough seeking his life to buy the silence of 
nearly all the police in the city, and if he had applied 
to the police he would have been furnishing grounds for 
them to claim he was crazy, and that might endanger 
his office as enrolling clerk. So if the devil and the 
deep sea ever existed in a man's life time it was then 
existing in the victim's life. 




WESTERN HOTEL. 



The clerk assigned him room No. 170, and said that 
was the only vacant room, when there were twelve other 
good rooms unoccupied at that time. If you are ever 



88 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

at the Western Hotel, go and look at this room, but go 
in the day time. It is a most convenient place to do a 
secret murder in. It is situate in the first story front- 
ing on an alley in the extreme rear of the hotel. A few 
feet away and nearly opposite is a small wooden build- 
ing in the rear of the Western Union Telegraph office. 
This building had a door and window looking toward 
room No. 170, and the windows were nearly opposite 
each other. 

After the victim had been in his room a few minutes 
two persons came along and lighted a match and said 
something, not entirely understood, about 170. There 
was an open transom over the door, their idea was to 
get a perfect location of the room. In about half an 
hour he was lying on his left side with his eyes shut 
about half asleep. 

Suddenly the room seemed light and he opened his 
eyes and there in the window of the little wooden build- 
ing he saw the bandaged-eye thug manipulating a dark 
lantern so as to throw the rays on his face to see 
whether he was asleep or not; also to observe his 
position. The victim immediately jumped out of bed 
and the dark lantern was as quickly closed. The facts 
all taken together show that William Land, the pro- 
prietor of this hotel, - who is from Fort Plain, N. Y., had 
a guilty knowledge of this intended murder, and pre- 
sumably had agreed through Bugby, the Sacramento 
brigadier to share in what was left of Harlan's $10,000 
murder fund. 

When he was meandering back to the hotel office he 
was certainly innoculated with some very queer sensa- 
tions about meeting some of the assassins there, and all 
the money in the State could not induce him to undergo 
such sensations again, if such were possible. Shortly 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 89 

after he got back to the hotel office in came the dark 
lantern man with another of the thugs. They came 
from the hallway leading back to the place where they 
were seen with the lantern. 

At about this point Assemblyman E. C. Mundy from 
Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, and J. H. Moffitt from 
Alameda County were passing on the sidewalk and the 
victim went out and told them in a brief way all that he 
had experienced at this hotel. He invited them in to 
the bar and had them take a look at the assassins and 
repeated the charge against these fellows to murder him 
in the presence of the night clerk, who then charged the 
victim with being crazy, and cited the article in the 
"Sacramento Bee" to prove it. One of the Assembly- 
men said, "Well, that article in the "Bee" is false, and 
we know that, but just what has been going on here I 
do not know. ' ' . 

And about that time the Assemblymen retired and the 
victim went to the City Hotel between Third and Fourth 
streets on K There he met Pat Connelly, the owner 
and proprietor of the hotel, who furnished him with a 
good, safe room, where he slept until the next morning. 
Some time after he met Mr. Connelly and the whole 
murder story was explained to him, and he advised the 
victim to write the story up and put in book form and 
sell it. 

On this morning, the victim went back to the West- 
ern Hotel and explained to A. W. Morris, the chief 
clerk, his experience at the hotel the night before. Mr. 
Morris begged him to say nothing more about it, as an 
exposure would do no good, and about this time the 
owner, Mr. Land, came up and caused his clerk to quit 
talking, thus impliedly admitting his own guilt. 

The victim then went out on the street and met some 



90 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

of the murder generals who looked sheepish and 
chagrined over the result of their device to murder the 
victim at the Capitol Hotel the night before, but the 
thugs were around as active as ever in trying to get a 
secret chance to murder. 

Then the victim went to Hinkson' s office and had a 
kind of mutual pumping match between them. After 
a while, Hinkson said, "Now, keep quiet and do not 
say anything to outsiders about this, and we will try to 
see if it can't be fixed up without any more publicity." 
He knew that Hinkson' s real desire was to keep the 
evidence and facts in the breasts of the victim' s enemies ; 
then, if they failed in killing him the world could not 
be made to believe there was anything to the alleged 
conspiracy. 

But the victim acted right to the contrary of his late 
adviser in the person of his false friend Hinkson, and 
went right across J. Street to R. F. Redman's store at 
310 and there informed him in an hour's talk of the 
whole affair, so that he would be able to prove in a 
degree the correctness of the story; and from there he 
went to William McLaughlin's and related to him the 
history of this secret war, and said to him, "You are 
acquainted with these fellows at the Capitol Hotel, and 
are on the inside ; now go there and enquire about this 
conspiracy to murder me and you will find what I 
say is true, and that the Capitol Hotel fellows are help- 
ing them simply because the money is on that side. ' ' 
The next time the victim met McLaughlin he said all 
that the victim had said was true and more, and advised 
the victim to keep out of the alleys and off the dark 
streets and he would beat them sure. 

On the 23d inst, the victim borrowed $20.00 from a 
money broker on the strength of his salary and bought 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 91 

a Smith & Wesson self-cocking 38 calibre pistol, which 
he has yet, and its only truth to say that he then in a 
way felt as bold as a wild lion in a jungle and they 
knew it; for they knew him and that he had the pistol, 
for he had been watched in its purchase by Nick White, 
a writer on the "Record Union." 

This evening the city was sentinelled as usual, and 
there were about eighteen known thugs trying to get a 
secret drive at him. Now, as it was getting along in 
the evening, he began to think of a place to sleep and 
was not particular so that he had a room fronting on 
the street, for he was satisfied that he could kill four or 
five of them before they could break into his room and 
perhaps the shooting might call some one to the scene. 
He slipped away from the watchers at the Capitol Hotel 
without being noticed, but soon made his way to the 
Russ House on J. Street. This was a new hotel, not 
extensively patronized, and he thought he could hide 
there for one night at least without being found ; but 
not so, they were looking and guarding everywhere. 
He met the cigarette fiend from Woodland on the street 
nearly opposite this house. He was on sentinel duty 
and tried to hide his face as the victim spotted him. 
At the Russ House was Felix Dunn, deputy State Comp- 
troller, with whom the victim was quite well ac- 
quainted. The murder gang being opposed to his 
brother, who was then State Comptroller, the -victim 
called him aside and told him what was going on in the 
murder line. Mr. Dunn said, "Don't be afraid, 
Sullivan, they dare not harm you unless they catch a 
sure shot, and this I don't believe you will let them 
do." He replied, "I am not afraid of them now. I 
only told you so that when this secret war is over they 
can' t lie out of it. ' ' 



92 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

He occupied room No. 6, which had a window open- 
ing on the side of the house, while directly opposite was 
room No. 9 with transoms over the doors. Shortly 
after he had barricaded the door with the furniture, he 
lay down on the floor behind it and then the cigarette 
fiend made his appearance in No. 9, lighted the gas, 
and in a short time extinguished it. About two o'clock 
the. victim heard the footsteps of five or six persons in 
the hall. They came to his door and tried to open it 
gently, but they found it barred. At about this time, 
the gas in No. 9 was relighted and they all went into 
that room and there held a whispered conversation. 

In the meantime, the victim had raised the window of 
his room and had his pistol in one hand and his police 
whistle in the other, and as the thugs came back and 
tried to get into this room he thought discretion the 
better part of valor and instead of beginning to shoot 
through the door at them, he blew the whistle out of 
the window, when they all ran pell mell down two 
flights of stairs and out into the street, and thus ended 
the contemplated murder for that night, and the victim 
lay down and had a good and much needed sleep. 

Another wife episode occurred after Stephens took his 
wife from the Capitol Hotel, in this way: Col. James 
Ayers was the State Printer. His office was of course 
political and was procured through the contingency now 
after the victim's life. The victim was not previously 
acquainted with the printer ; nevertheless, the typo came 
to him and affected great sympathy for him, and talked 
as though he were fully posted on all the plots and 
plans against the victim. He earnestly requested the 
victim to go out to this home that night and sleep all 
night, stating that his wife was not at home, she being 
the whole family aside from the generous printer, who 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 93 

was then shedding a great quantity of crocodile tears 
over the misfortunes of the poor victim. The deceit 
was so apparent and the intention so certain that the 
victim simply heard him present his plot of destruction 
without even condescending to make him any reply, 
unless it was grinning detection at him. The gallant 
Colonel never spoke to the victim after this time, though 
they used to meet nearly every day of the session. 

The same James Meredith that was mentioned at 
Folson as the special friend of Bugby was now compar- 
atively dead broke and living at Sacramento City, and 
had some kind of interest in a drug store at the corner 
of Second and K. Streets. Now, about the 24th of July 
the victim was at this drug store and told Mr. Meredith 
about this combination trying to kill him, and of his 
desire to find some safe place to sleep at night. He 
told him that he had a large home on M Street, that he 
would see his wife about it, and for the victim to come 
around the next evening and he would let him know. 

The next evening the victim went to the store, and 
Mr. Meredith said yes, that it was all fixed; that they 
would go down and look at .the room ; that his two 
larger children had gone to Folson that morning and the 
young ones were in bed. This clearing the home of 
children was significant and from that instant the victim 
would not sleep there, though he thought he would go 
to see how far they would go or what might develop. 
They went into a cigar store on Second Street adjoining 
the saloon into which Wallace from Woodland had 
gone on July 20th. Mr. Meredith called for twenty-five 
cent cigars. The victim noted this as extravagant for 
a man broke, who wanted to take in roomers, and from 
that moment was perfectly well satisfied that he had 



94 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

seen Bugby and was making a play for boodle, and of 
course did not care for half a dollar. 

As they walked out, there in front of the saloon stood 
two thugs that had previously been watching to get a 
secret drop on him, and Meredith slightly motioned his 
head to the right at the Mexican thug in middle life. 
They went off toward the house of Meredith and the 
victim looked back after a little and saw the two thugs 
following. In due time they arrived at the house and 
were very nicely received by Mrs Meredith. 

After a while she showed the victim the room he was 
expected to occupy, which was on the ground floor in 
the rear of the house with front and back entrance. It 
was a twin to the murder room No. 170 at the Western 
Hotel. They returned to the sitting room, where Mrs. 
Meredith by her superior mind entertained him and 
very graciously showed him many of the pretty things 
in the room, making herself extra agreeable. After he 
had gleaned all the points from this field of his ruin, 
he assumed great regret in not being desirous of taking 
the room. 

Upon this announcement, the scowls, frowns and 
wrinkles that instantly showed themselves upon her 
face can only be known by the imagination, for there is 
no pen that can describe her looks. It is truth to say 
that she looked like one suffering under some great, 
secret calamity, or like one having been seriously dis- 
appointed by not receiving some great and needed gain. 
There were great, deep furrows that inniated in the centre 
of her forehead and plowed themselves in a circular form 
around over her eyes until they were lost on the sides of 
her head. Her lips were firmly set with the corners of 
her mouth drawn down. Her eyes were glaring with 
wild, disappointed stare, first looking up and then down, 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 95 

while Meredith seemed to cower and sink into insignifi- 
cance. His face became intensely red, and great drops 
of sweat trying to ooze out were wiped off with his 
hand. It was fully four minutes after he told them he 
would not occupy their room that night before a word 
was spoken by any of them, then he arose and helped 
himself to his hat that had been so gracefully cared for 
by Mrs. Meredith when he entered, and while they were 
still spellbound and mutely sitting in their seats, he 
respectfully bade them "Good night," leaving them to 
the awful contemplation of their own sins, etc. , etc. 

He had gone only a few steps on the sidewalk when 
he saw the old Mexican ahead of him, who went to the 
outside of the walk and looked out into the street as the 
victim passed. Shortly after the killers had been dis- 
banded, he met the old Mexican Who had on a new pair 
of brogans and he said, "You didn't get me at Mere- 
dith' s that night, did you. " He said, ' ' No. ' ' He then 
asked the Mexican how much he got out of them. The 
Mexican said, "Nothing but these shoes, some beer and 
tobacco." 

After the war was over and the victim was about 
coming East, he met Meredith and had a talk with him, 
and he substantially admitted the whole story as here 
told about him, but like the other assassins justified 
himself for the reason that since the victim was to be 
killed sure, he might as well have some of the money. 

We now pass over several minor tragedical episodes 
that occurred and come to Capt. I. G. Mesick, Sergeant- 
at-arms of the Senate, who held his position through 
that faction of the Democratic party that was persecuting 
the victim. The flames of vengeance and destruction 
were now raging against him. So this valiant captain 
thought he must help the thing along and keep himself 



96 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

solid with the gang, and to that end he planned a little, 
weak, puerile plot, which was sought to be worked by 
the captain's ordering the Enrolling Clerk away from a 
vacant desk in the open Senate chamber and directing 
him to a lone room where it was said by the captain 
that the clerk might have his office. 

The victim knew from the general situation, and 
from what he had overhead the captain say about him, 
that this was a little plot of the captain to get him into 
a room where he could be killed, and he plainly told 
him so and refused to go. The plot failed, but the 
victim dared not say much openly about any of these 
plots, because they would furnish grounds to institute 
insanity proceedings against him, and he would then 
lose his office, for the kettle was boiling hot at this time. 

The grand army of assassins were now outgeneraled 
and their defeat assured providing the victim could 
procure a safe place to sleep ; so this day he went to the 
Hotel Windsor and had room No. 140 assigned to him 
for three days, and as he was turning away from the 
counter after registering, he noticed one of the thugs 
peering in at him from the sidewalk. He knew that he 
was detected notwithstanding he had registered under 
an assumed name at a strange hotel. He must now 
find another place to sleep or be destroyed. In the 
meantime, they had procured a large trunk from the 
corner of Sixth and K streets and taken it to a place on 
Eighth Street at easy distance from the Windsor, to 
hold his remains akin to the Maxwell murder of St. 
Louis then rampant in the papers. Disease is catching, 
you know; and about bed-time he gave the watch-dogs 
at the Capitol Hotel the slip and wended his way to 
Mrs. Castorf's lodging house on the corner of Third and 
K streets, where he obtained a room and had a good 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 97 

sleep all night. Before retiring he told the landlady 
about this gang so that she might not get frightened if she 
heard a little shooting. 

Upon arriving at the corner on which this lodging 
house is situated, he noticed two of the thugs there on 
the watch. So instead of going directly upstairs to the 
house, he went into the saloon of J. D. Considine 
underneath and from there went up the back way. But 
before he went up he explained to Considine all about 
this killing match, and how Postmaster Stephens had 
treated him. Considine was one of the political pillars 
upon which Stephens rested, and he derided Stephens 
for his base ingratitude. But the next day, when seen, 
Considine seemed to be averse to talking much, so the 
victim slipped in the question, "Have you seen 
Stephens today?" He answered first, "Yes," then 
meditated and said, "No." This was enough for a man 
up a tree with all trying to get a shot at him. Considine 
after the war admitted that he knew that they were try- 
ing to kill the victim with Harlan' s money, and that he 
decided to keep out of both sides. He is not a bad 
fellow and had no criminal intent himself. 

The second night* that he stayed at Mrs, Castorf's the 
thugs had found out his sleeping quarters, so he had 
about the same experience with them as at the Russ 
house with the difference that he had no chance to blow 
the whistle so as to arouse the people on the street, and 
the thugs did not give up their attempts so quickly ; 
besides their tactics here were to try the door and 
aggravate the victim out into the hall where they might 
get a pop at him, but after about an hour they went 
away and he had plenty of sleep after that. 

The next close shave for his life was like this : he was 
passing a lumber yard away up on Twelfth Street, near 



98 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

J Street, about half past eight o'clock in the evening. 
It was so far away from the general rendezvous of the 
assassins that he had not prepared for, or been thinking of 
any danger, when from the lumber yard, pop, pop, went 
two gun shots, one of them cutting a hole in the lapel 
of his coat near the waist. He immediately turned and 
looked toward the place whence the shots came, and he 
saw two fellows running who turned behind a pile of 
lumber, and the victim lost no time in making himself 
scarce in that part of the city. He could prove nothing 
about this except the fact of the hole in his coat, and 
they would say he made it himself, so he simply said 
nothing about it, but kept good watch against attacks 
in the future. 

It would take a book five times the size of this to give 
the details of all the plots and plans of this conspiracy, 
so the line has to be drawn on some of the prominent 
ones, that can in a measure be authenticated by persons 
other than the thugs and the victim. He again went 
to Henry L. Buckley, district attorney of Sacramento 
County, and gave him a general outline of the whole 
affair, and after consultation it was decided not to have 
any of them arrested until further direct evidence was 
procured. So here was another person who knew some 
thing of this war at the time it was raging. 

It was now the 27th of July, 1886, and Mr. Blessing, 
the proprietor of this Capitol Hotel is sitting in a chair 
deeply engrossed in reading matter written on legal cap 
paper. The victim by accident came up behind him 
without making any noise. Mr. Blessing continued to 
read and the victim looked over and saw his own name, 
Jezebel's, Nora Cameron's, Katie Ball's, and also that 
of Vic Harlan's in the papers which he read. Mr. 
Blessing read for quite a long time before he noticed 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 99 

the victim. When he did notice him, he immediately 
rolled up the legal cap paper, arose and went away. 
But it was too late ; the discovery had been made and 
the true situation arrived at. 

The reason for Harlan's son-in-law's attack on him 
with assassins at Woodland and elsewhere was soon 
solved by him. He now recalled how Jezebel had lied 
and taunted him by saying that he had slandered Vic 
Harlan, and how she said that her mother, Mrs. 
Bentley, Nora Cameron, Ball's niece, Ball's daughter 
Katie, and others would swear that he had slandered 
this young woman (whom up to that time he had 
never seen. ) He remembered how these persons came 
to his house and tried to get him to talk about young 
Craft, and Miss Harlan, etc. Also, how he had heard 
persons in the hall at night, and Jezebel would try to 
aggravate him to talk about this Harlan tragedy. 

He considered the unrelenting, vicious attacks made 
on his life, which he knew were induced by the sure, 
strong power of money, and that it took big money to 
run such a secret war and pay all the officers and thugs, 
and his mind was now made up that Harlan was the 
man putting up the murder money. The victim there- 
fore lost no time in making his affidavit in duplicate, 
addressed to Harlan, which showed that he was trying 
to murder the victim with hired thugs for an alleged 
slander of his daughter, which was false, and that he 
was deceived by the use of false affidavits into believing 
this falsehood, while the truth was, his once alleged but 
false friends were using him and his money to murder 
the victim to cover up the evidence of their own crimes 
and immorality, and that if his affidavit was accepted 
in good faith by him he would know it by the fact of 
the assassins ceasing their hunt to kill him. 



100 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

After this affidavit was made, he read it to Hinkson, 
and in about an hour after it was deposited in the post- 
office, he saw Hinkson and Clay W. Taylor going up 
the stairway leading to Brigadier Bugby's office, and 
that evening there was not an assassin to be seen. So 
he knew the affidavit had taken effect and produced the 
long desired result. 

After this affidavit, the Brigadier and his aids knew 
that the source of their power was known, and they 
feared exposure, especially if the victim was killed and 
the copy of the affidavit he had kept was found. Also, 
that if he was killed and the decent people of Woodland 
got hold of this affidavit, showing Harlan's part in the 
murder conspiracy, his chances for conviction on. his 
second trial would be greatly increased. So for these 
reasons and others as cogent, the assassins were called 
off. 

The true theory about this Harlan affidavit is that as 
soon as Hinkson got an opportunity to inform Post- 
master Stephens that it was to be mailed to Harlan, he 
did so, and as soon as it was mailed Stephens took it to 
the Brigadier's office where the consultation over it was 
had and the conclusion reached as pointed out. Now, 
Senator Taylor undoubtedly thought that as soon as the 
Harlan thugs had been disbanded and the murder 
money taken down, the war would be over. Being 
desirous of retaining the victim' s friendship, the Senator 
thought all he had to do was to tell him of his narrow 
escape. 

The next morning after he had mailed the affidavit to 
Harlan, he went into the State Capitol and there the 
Senator called the victim aside and said, "Sullivan, you 
have avoided a great calamity. You have escaped being 
killed. Why did you not leave the country?" And 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 101 

thus the would-be governor plead the guilt of the bunch 
of conspirators. He also impliedly told the victim 
something which he 'did not know before, which was 
that they thought he would be frightened and leave the 
country. Before this time, the victim had applied to 
him to stop the persecution and the great Solon would 
not listen. Another fact, worthy of note, is the single 
affidavit of truth counteracted the great number of 
affidavits made by sirens and libertines, and truth 
crushed to earth had arisen. 

The strictly political and immoral part of this con- 
spiracy did not disband, notwithstanding they lost the 
help of Harlan and his money, for they well knew that 
the victim must be killed or their exposure would 
follow sooner or later. So they made a new plan which 
was worked out in this way. 

Jezebel now came to Sacramento City and hunted up 
the victim. He let her have full swing with her designs 
to find them out, and then beat them as he knew he 
could : so she through John Tackney, a friend of Ball' s 
found a real nice room on Tenth Street to sleep in, she 
was so very solicitous that he should have rest, and it 
was all talked up, agreed upon and engaged. He was 
to sleep there that night. After everything was so 
thoughtfully and nicely arranged for his nightly repose, 
she suddenly found that she must go back to Woodland 
that evening, and late that evening she went out into 
the country and stayed all night. Her confederates had 
her do this, so that when the news of his murder arrived 
at Woodland, she and her pals would be several miles 
apart, and that would make it easier for them to allay 
any suspicions against them ; also, there would then be 
more time in which to consider the best way for her to 
act so as to deceive the honest and decent people there. 



102 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

Well, it so happened that the victim stayed at this 
house until after dark, and this same Hogland came 
sneaking around the house, and when the victim 
thought it most desirable he slipped away and obtained 
a bed at the same Mrs. Castorf's, and thus the murder 
plan was made and defeated. 

Another little circumstance considered worthy of 
mention is, that the victim had after the last escapade 
been hiding and sleeping nights at the water cure, one 
block below the Capitol Hotel and they had not been 
able to find him out. So one morning as he came down 
from his rooms the landlady, whom he had never seen 
but once, accosted him just as he was leaving and asked 
him to go to her class, whatever that meant. He knew 
all this was so unnatural that it meant something affect- 
ing him, and if so, it must be his life that was so 
secretly and strenously sought. 

He soon found out, for as he opened the door there 
on the opposite corner stood Senator Cox watching for 
some one, and as soon as he espied the victim, he 
turned around, humped up his shoulders, bent forward 
the upper part of his body, and in a hurried, sneaking 
kind of manner went toward the Sacramento river. 
The victim hurried after, and caught up with him and 
said, "Senator, they have not knocked me out of exist 
enceyet, have they?" He said, "No; neither have they 
knocked the Supreme Court out, " thus evasively parry- 
ing the subject. 

The true theory is, Senator Cox had asked this lady 
about the victim by description and for her to detain 
him when he came down stairs; and by previous signs 
and help, he would get in position to watch to see if it 
really was he when he came out of the house, and 
then the remaining contingent of the band would know 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 103 

for certain his sleeping quarters and could make killing 
arrangements accordingly. The victim would never 
suspect him of doing such a low, dirty act. What a 
villainous wretch a man must be to use the power his 
millions gave him to spy out the sleeping apartments of 
his friend that he might be sneaked upon and killed in 
bed. 

His hiding place having been detected by Senator 
Cox, he must now find a new place or be killed. So he 
strolled about the city and finally selected as the most 
secretive and least suspected by his enemies a little, 
two story frame house on L Street, the castle of Mr. 
John 0' Brien. The room assigned him had a window 
opening onto a woodshed by the side of which stood a 
sycamore tree. He slept there that night undisturbed 
and in the morning had breakfast with his new hostess. 
While eating, he asked her if she had seen or heard 
any person about the house the night before. She said, 
' 'that she had not, but that just after he had gone to bed 
she went out to the grocery and she noticed a large man 
pacing back and forth by the house and looking toward 
it. He was also very impudent, for he looked right into 
the very eyes of her. ' ' She then described this man 
very minutely, which description showed him to be no 
other than Hogland. 

The victim then told her how this fellow and others 
had been trying to get a chance to secretly kill him. 
During the whole of this day he could not help but 
believe that some of the combine would go to Mrs. 
O'Brien and cause her by the allurements of money to 
betray his hiding place. So to detect such contingency 
he went there to supper, and her actions being so much 
different from those of the night before, and her many 
lies about her husband's business, and in fact and short 



104 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

it being so evident to the victim that some great change 
of heart and mind had taken place, he concluded it very 
unsafe to stay there and take the chances in getting 
away safe by sliding down the sycamore tree, as she 
suggested. 

There can be no doubt but that she had been bribed 
to let Hogland into the room to kill the victim. Yet, 
not being a criminal at heart and only temporarily made 
so by a few dollars, she felt conscience-stricken and 
thus unconsciously suggested the manner of escape by 
which she in a way pleaded her guilt. 

That night the victim obtained lodging with a slight 
acquaintance of his, Thomas O'Brien, on J Street, 
where he had a good sleep and breakfast in the morn- 
ing. In the meantime, the whole subject of this con- 
spiracy was briefly gone over, and Mr. O'Brien promised 
all kinds of aid and assistance and that the victim's 
room should remain an absolute secret from the enemy. 

But the victim began to analyze the situation to him- 
self about like this : Here is 0' Brien, an apparent and 
professed friend and likewise a friend of Postmaster 
Stephens, and must necessarily be a greater friend of his 
than of the victim, for the reason that his greater interest 
laid there, because of the fact that Stephens had ap- 
pointed his son to a position in the postoffice. Should 
Stephens or any of the combine meet O'Brien and 
enquire about the victim, the victim's new hiding- 
place would be entirely disclosed ; and thus the victim 
worked in solving the situation until he traced Mr. 
Blessing of the Capitol Hotel going up J Street, until 
he was lost by going into O'Brien's house. This settled 
the fact. 

Blessing had in some way been informed of the 
victim's hiding place of the night before, and had now 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 105 

gone in there for some reason that would help the des- 
truction plan along. When the victim went to O'Brien's 
that night he found him half drunk and very reticent. 
Not a word could be gotten out of him, though his 
inebriate state was just at that point when an Irishman 
is always talkative. 

Now, we all know that an Irishman is a great person 
to drink when death or danger is at hand, and O'Brien's 
condition was only true to this characteristic, as the 
victim then well knew. Notwithstanding his conclusion 
about O'Brien and the general situation, he was satisfied 
that he could safely sleep there that night for the 
reason that the apartments were not easy of access by 
assassins; besides, there were children in the house, 
and in case of murder they would be a bad class of 
witnesses for the combine, as they usually tell the 
truth; also, for the further reason that he had that 
day again informed District Attorney Buckley of the 
entire situation, the 0' Brien house and all. 

They in all probability had not yet formulated a plan 
of direct attack as Hogland was the only known assassin 
in active blood service, and he was a coward; so he 
concluded that inasmuch as he ate there that morning 
they would likely try the poison racket on him. 

The next morning his breakfast was prepared for him 
the same as the morning before with this difference: the 
preceding morning the coffee was made and served from 
a tin coffee pot, this morning the coffee prepared for 
him was made in and served from a two quart tin 
bucket. There was a teaspoon quite close to his coffee 
which had a drop of liquid in it. He took the spoon 
up and smelled it, and thereby found that the spoon 
and fluid smelled of some kind of drug ; so it is perhaps 
useless to say, he drank none of the coffee there that 



106 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

morning, nor ever after. This is as close as they came 
to poisoning him, and as close as he wanted them to 
come. 

It was now evident that in order to preserve his life 
he must keep away from O'Brien's house, for if he 
could not be secretly poisoned there he would be killed 
outright. His next hiding place 'was obtained at Mrs. 
Hennessey's lodging house on J Street near Seventh 
Street. It was a large brick house with an approach 
from the rear as well as the front. 

The occupants were all respectable mechanics and 
railroad employees, and total strangers to the victim, 
so by not giving his correct name he had a right to 
assume that he was reasonably safe here, which he was. 
His hiding place could not now be discovered by the 
combine and he slept here for several nights without 
detection. 

At last the combine became desperate and they sent 
Jezebel over from Woodland to spy him out. Now, 
the fact that a woman would come twenty eight miles 
to spy out the sleeping apartments of any man under 
any circumstances, and especially the ones here so that 
he might be found and killed, is perfectly appalling, 
and especially is this so, when the only reason for such 
killing was to hide their own sins ; nevertheless, it is all 
true. 

Now the question might be asked, Why the victim 
did not refuse to countenance this woman any longer, 
and not allow her to come around him? Such is a very 
reasonable question, and the answer to it would require 
great space. Suffice it to say, the die had long since 
been cast. She was a murderess, which he now knew, 
and she had then been for a long time trying to have 
him killed in secret ; she and they would continue their 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 107 

plotting like a drowning man as long as there was a 
straw to grasp at. He knew that he could defeat them, 
and one of the best ways to do so was to fight them as 
they did him, with duplicity, and extend and broaden 
the battle and get it into as many mouths, and have it 
known to as many people, as possible. 

Then when he wrote it up, it would authenticate itself 
and be of so broad, wonderful and almost miraculous a 
nature that the sale of the story in book form would be 
assured and extensive, and in this way instead of his 
being killed, they would be the ones killed, and yet 
thereby benefitted; for they would then be estopped 
from doing like crime again, and they might possibly 
repent and be thereby benefitted more than the value of 
the whole world. 

After Jezebel had found out his hiding place, and in- 
formed the Sacramento contingent of the same, she went 
back to Woodland to await the results of the newly 
made plot, while he went about avoiding such a plot by 
finding a new place of refuge, which was obtained in a 
front room in the third story of the Ebner Hotel on K 
Street. Here was the most secure and safest place he 
had yet found and after the door was barred by the 
furniture, it was a regular fort. 

He slept in this room for the remainder of the legis- 
lative session, though he took only one meal there, for 
the very next day he saw this fellow Hogland talking 
to one of the waiters, and that was enough. He 
wanted no more of the symptoms that he had experi- 
enced at the Capitol Hotel and one other place after 
Judge Armstrong's Dr. Snyder was called in to pre- 
scribe for him. 

He knew about what a poor waiter and the officers 
would do in secret for a little money. He had practic- 



108 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

ally experienced the result of their actions in such cases, 
and desired no further evidence on this point, so he 
simply gave them no chance to poison him, but took 
his meals irregularly around the city, first in one place 
and then in another, at the various restaurants and 
hotels in the city. 

This Robert Sears, who ran across the street the day 
Spaulding and his killers attacked the victim, was now 
rooming at the "White House" on Third Street, and 
the victim having had some little talk with him on the 
streets, now went to his rooms and there they had a 
general conversation about this conspiracy, and it was 
at this time, as well as later, Jbhat Sears told the victim 
all about the attempt to kill him the day Gas Hunt was 
on the street with his horse and buggy to run the 
assassins off. And at this time Mr. Sears told the 
victim about often seeing Jezebel with Ball, and also at 
different times with Craige and Fiske in John Powers' 
Oyster Cafe away past the middle of the night, lunching 
together, and also of seeing them together in the hall 
over the Bank of Woodland, while the victim was 
enrolling clerk at Sacramento and before that time, as 
well as in this beautiful court house park. 

Every attempt thus far to assassinate him having 
proved a failure, an effort was next made in that direct- 
ion under the following conditions and plans. The 
victim was attorney in a Justice Court law suit then 
pending at Madison, about twelve miles from Woodland 
in Yolo County. If he could be induced to go out 
there and try this action, no doubt he could be secretly 
disposed of there where John D. Stephens had so many 
relatives and so many business interests. The suit 
could be prolonged and the victim could be clandestinely 
murdered at night when coming home. So to carry 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 109 

out such calculation, Jezebel wrote him about the matter 
and tried to get him there where there was a $20.00 
fee ; but he was not looking for that kind of a twenty 
dollar snap just then, and did not go, so the whole 
scheme died before maturity. 

The active operations of the combination were on the 
wane with only one active killer in the scene at Sacra- 
mento ; and so the end now beginning to appear in sight 
and the victim feeling the necessity of some more direct 
convicting evidence against some of the first originators 
of this conspiracy, thought he would quietly go to 
Woodland, and see what he could do toward obtaining 
such information. So he boarded the six o'clock even- 
ing train bound for Woodland and going over he rode 
on the platform to evade being seen by any person, who 
might possibly give his presence away to the combine. 

He departed from the rear end of the last car on the 
side opposite the depot, and succeeded in getting from 
that place up a back stairway to the room Mr. Hunt 
had on the opposite side of the hall to his own flat. He 
climbed into this room through a back window entirely 
unobserved, and was then in a perfect position to watch 
any developments that might occur, such as Mr. Sears 
had recently informed him about in regard to Jezebel, 
Ball, etc. 

There was a transom over the door in Mr. Hunt's 
room, leading into the hall, and the victim by standing 
on a small table which was in the room, had a good 
view of the hall and part of his own flat. In a very 
short time, J. C. Ball came up the stairs and went into 
his office. Presently he came out into the hall and 
went to the hall door leading to the flat where Jezebel 
was. The victim was on the table taking observations. 
She said, "Why good evening, Mr. Ball. I want to 



110 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

show you a letter from Mr. Sullivan. Ball entered the 
room and she handed him a letter which he read and 
then said, "He is getting smart, isn't he; but he won't 
always be here to talk about our adultery; we'll get 
him yet." 

Here was the direct, incriminating evidence showing 
both their adultery and determination to yet kill him, 
and the power that prevented him from firing at them 
over the transom and killing them both where they stood 
has ever since served as a great source of meditation for 
him. Mr. Hunt's door was locked and he could not 
get to the place where they were without going a very 
roundabout way the same as he came into the room, and 
by doing that he might miss some other incriminating 
remark and he wanted to catch all he could, so he 
simply remained where he was. 

But he failed to hear anything definite as they moved 
to another part of the room and conversed in a lower 
tone for a little while, and then the base libertine and 
would-be murderer retired, conscious of his chivalric 
spirit and many victories in ruining women and breaking 
up homes. Perhaps he thought of the disruption of the 
Shellhouse family some twenty years before in Placer 
County, of the forged letter that was to send Shellhouse 
to State's Prison, and of his own indictment for perjury 
out of which he slipped through a back door technicality 
through the legal acumen of his friend Judge Arm- 
strong. 

When the victim went into the flat that night, 
Jezebel at first denied of having seen Ball at all; then 
verbal shot began to get hot and she capitulated and 
admitted everything that she did and he said. But the 
next day after she had received an opportunity to see 
the beast, she denied that he had said, "We'll get him 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. Lll 

yet. ' ' At first she did not realize that these words plead 
the guilt of both of them in having tried and intending 
to try still further to murder him; but under Ball's 
instructions she denied these words. 

Ball was not exactly a fool so he now knew the direct 
evidence was in the breast of the victim showing him to 
be a libertine and a would-be murderer. Now he must 
as a matter of protection kill the victim, or suffer 
exposure, which, in a sense, was to him as undesirable 
as death. Therefore, the tried and true of the killers 
conceived another plot, which is briefly told here. 

The victim being conscious through reasoning from the 
facts already known that they would now try again to 
kill him, and also being confident that they could not 
dp it, and he desiring to add some more infamy to 
them, if possible, and possibly get some more direct 
evidence against them, used Jezebel for this purpose. 
He told her that when he went back to Sacramento he 
was going to change his room and sleep in the Clunie 
Building on the corner of Eighth and K streets where 
his trunk was. So they believed this and made their 
plans accordingly ; and to carry out the details of the 
general plot Ball who was now more desirous than any 
of them, went over to Sacramento on the same train 
the victim did. 

He first went to the Capitol Hotel and made some 
observations, and then went over to the law offices of 
Armstrong & Hinkson. The judge was reported by 
Hinkson to be indisposed and would not be at his office 
that day. By this time, the victim knew that Ball had 
gone to the judge's home, and was then certain that the 
sick business of the judge reported at his office was only 
a play for him to keep away so that the victim could 
not interview him and thereby possibly get any evidence 



112 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

against him that day, and also to help his friend, Ball, 
arrange the details of the killing plot for the coming 
night. 

The victim was now drowsy and tired and lay down 
on a sofa in Hinkson's office, and in a short time he 
noticed that his false friend was unusually nervous and 
not at all comfortable in his chair and one did not seem 
to lit the other. He would writhe and coil in it like the 
coiling and uncoiling of a little black viper. He would 
drop his head in his right hand and apparently medi- 
tate. After a while he arose from his chair and 
remarked as he left, "I'll be back in a few minutes. 
You stay here and keep office until I return. ' ' 

In a short time Mr Hinkson returned and soon there- 
after an insurance agent came in, and they commenced 
to talk about the general advantage and humanity there 
was in a man' s insuring his lif e for his friends, and even 
for himself in case he desired to borrow money on the 
policy ; and it was repeated over and over by them that 
a ten dollar premium would secure a two thousand 
dollar policy in the company they were discussing. 
After the farce had proceeded for sometime, and the 
victim did not bite the bait, though they had taken 
many furtive glances toward him, they thought it 
advisable to drop the curtain on that part of the play, 
and pretend the viper had decided to secure his family 
to the extent of a two thousand dollar policy; so a 
receipt for the ten dollar premium and the money passed 
between them and after the reptile had made a pretense 
of examining this receipt the entire pretense was over. 

The deceit and duplicity of the incarnate villains im- 
parted a mingled feeling of laughter and contemptuous 
horror to the victim. - Their silly device was amusing, 
while their malignant and abandoned hearts, showing 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 113 

through this gauzy plot, filled the victim with a right- 
eous horror. If the insurance plan had carried and the 
contemplated murder followed, these fellows would have 
gotten the whole sum of money and conspirator Jezebel 
would have been left. 

After the play of the insurance farce, he went over to 
the Clunie building and examined his trunk and found 
it all right, but the real object in going over there was 
to cause them to believe he was going to sleep there that 
night as he had informed Jezebel before leaving Wood- 
land; so that they would be sure to arrange their plot 
and attempt to execute it there that night, because he 
was sure of another murder scheme being organized as 
stated, and he believed it would be easier to outgeneral 
them at this place than any other, and after being defeat- 
ed again they might possibly have sense enough to quit. 

In the afternoon, he went again to Hinkson's office, 
and this same Oscar Marshall from Stockton was there. 
Presently he and Hinkson arose and went into Judge 
Armstrong's office, the adjoining room. There they 
were with Hinkson's back toward the victim, while 
Marshall was facing him with his hand in his pocket as 
if ready to draw and shoot, but at this point Hinkson 
shook his head thereby denoting not to shoot, knowing 
that it would be too hazardous there with the victim 
heeled, besides they would get him that night at the 
Clunie Building ; so fear for their own lives and fool 
calculations on getting him, which meant shooting him 
that night, saved a shooting escapade. 

To serve his own purpose in making them believe he 
would sleep at the Clunie building that night, he went 
over there again that afternoon and found Mrs. Grice, 
the landlady, was going over to Woodland that evening 
to be gone all night. He mused to himself and said, 



114 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

"This is significant; she is getting away from the scene 
of the intended killing tonight." 

Another significant fact was that a man and woman 
who had occupied a room for a long time next to his 
were then moving out. Perhaps these last two facts 
standing alone would not be portentious of any evil, but 
taken in connection with the attempts to kill already 
made they meant a kind of clearing of the deck for the 
fight on the coming evening. He now went over to the 
Capitol Hotel, and there hanging around were many of 
the known thugs and conspirators who were looking 
murderous and newly determined, so that, unless he 
was actually crazy, according to the affidavit of the 
perjured district attorney of Yolo County, or a fool, he 
must certainly know that they were again planning 
and intending to kill him. 

At the Capitol Hotel there was a new enlistment of 
thugs on watch, which, he understood, was there so as 
to allay and disipate any suspicions he might have. 
Now about nine o'clock that evening he went to his 
room so as to make what observations he could of the 
impending battle, and as he approached the building, 
there were noticed some young men lounging on the 
sidewalk in front of the stairs, and as he reached the 
foot of the stairs going up, three of the fellows started 
up ahead of him and went into room No. 9, from which 
the man and woman had just moved and there was no 
furniture at all in the room. 

He went into his room and waited for a long time, 
and not a sound had been made in the adjoining room 
where the three villains had entered. This thug room 
and the victim's were connected by a door with a tran- 
som over it, and had he laid down and gone to bed, it 
would have been an easy matter to have chloroformed 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 115 

him over the transom and then gone in and killed him 
in such a way as to show suicide ; or, the thugs could 
have broken down this door, and perhaps by their 
number dispatched him. 

Then one Hudnut, a great ' ' I Am' ' of a detective, who 
had a room just across the hall and who was in with 
these killers, would have come in as a witness ; also, for 
a slice of the money pie. Mrs. Grice was at Woodland 
the night of the tragedy, Judge Armstrong would have 
been at home sick, visited by his old friend Ball, who 
had come over to buy some lumber that day, and 
Jezebel again out in the country the night of this killing 
— how wonderfully fine and nice the matter was 
planned to have the conspirators all in such position. 
Away from the scene, and at such distance, they could 
have further time in which to determine how to act 
after the homicide. 

Now our victim understood the situation then just as 
well as now, and to beat them he simply went out into 
the hall and then back to the rear of the building, 
where there were stairs leading down to the street, and 
skipped away to the Ebner Hotel and stayed all night in 
safety and had a good, sound sleep. ■ 

The next morning after Ball had skulked from the 
city, Judge Armstrong showed up at his office as hale 
and hearty as ever nature designed he should be, with 
no indisposition except that of being interviewed by the 
victim. The victim afterwards told Jezebel all about 
the facts of this plot much more minutely than here 
detailed. 

He now wanted all the conspirators to know that he 
was posted on nearly all their movements and who they 
all were, and he knew that telling her was the same as 
telling them, and even better. Besides he told her that 



116 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

Armstrong's great interest in aiding Ball was because he 
was going to loan him a thousand dollars to make his 
canvass, if he received the nomination for Supreme 
Judge. 

The victim knew all these conspirators for years; he 
knew just how their interests dovetailed together, and 
thereby he was able to spot them and know just how 
they would act. They had been his friends in former 
times, but now their greater interests were on the other 
side, and there they acted even unto attempted murder, 
but in such a way as to try to hide their tracks, the 
same as any other criminals. 

Up to this time the conspirators had been detected 
and thwarted in every plan and plot they could make, 
and none of them could be worked out with the results 
they desired. They could not assassinate the lone crazy 
man from Yolo, and they must either find some one 
with fiendish courage enough to try to kill him in open 
combat, or give up, and try to lie out of the whole 
matter. To find one with sufficient brute courage to 
undertake the open killing had been tried by some of 
the most desperate murderers and desperate criminals 
on the Coast and they had all weakened or been out- 
generalled. So their hope in that direction was most 
discouraging, and they would have to try some other 
expedient, for the present at least. 

At last the fertlie brain of Generalissimo conceived a 
plan of getting him ousted from his clerkship and as 
they had him broke aside from that, he would soon be 
boycotted without money, and then they could perhaps 
destroy him in some way. To put this scheme into 
operation they had Senator Dave McClure from San 
Francisco to introduce the following verbatim resolution : 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 117 

"Resolved, that the office of Enrolling Clerk be 
declared vacant." 

Now here was a resolution, without a preamble, a 
reason, or a whereas given to show its necessity, intro- 
duced by a Senator who voted for the incumbent of 
the office, and now seeks to arbitrarily depose him with- 
out giving any reason therefor. 

What had caused this great Senator now to desire this 
particular office declared vacant without assigning any 
reason for it? Is the reason found in the inference that 
may be drawn from the fact that every reading man 
and woman in the United States circumstantially knows 
that some members in every legislative body often sell 
their influence, power, or votes for some material sub- 
stance, or promise of future reward. 

The resolution took its regular course under the rules 
of the Senate and was referred to the committee, of 
which Senator Lynch from San Francisco was chairman, 
and there it remained until a committee from the Wood- 
land conspiracy came over and saw the committee and 
other senators. 

Then the resolution was star chambered through the 
committee, and the enrolling clerk unlawfully deprived 
of a hearing thereon, and the resolution reported back 
with a recommendation for passage. But they wait 
until they calculate they have a majority present to pass 
it and then a viva voce vote was taken on it so that 
there might not be a record of how the senators voted on 
this infamous and unlawful resolution, and nine out of 
twenty-three senators present voted in favor of the 
passage of the resolution. In other words, nine senators 
of the State of California voted to have their enrolling 
clerk placed in a position to be secretly murdered ; and 



118 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

Senators Lynch, Taylor and Cox made three of the nine 
who voted in favor of this resolution. 

If there is an artist in the world who could portray 
the looks and attitude of these murderous senators at the 
time of the defeat of this resolution, he would have one 
of the truest illustrations of depraved, defeated, and 
devilish manhood that ever disgraced the high office of 
senator. They seemed to shrivel and shrink up like so 
many dried shrimps in a Chinese huckster shop. Their 
faces contracted and wrinkled up like an old raw hide. 
Tliey looked the synonyms of the worst lot of self-con- 
victed libertines that ever went unhung. 

There is always some motive that prompts every 
human action, and where was the motive, real or 
imaginary, that prompted these senators to see so sud- 
denly that it was in consonance with their sworn duty, 
and so strictly in obedience to their oaths of office that 
they must summarily depose the Enrolling Clerk of the 
Senate; contrary to the Statute law of the State, and 
without giving him any chance to be heard, or assigning 
any reason for their action? 

If it was an inordinate greed for money, would it not 
have been more honorable for them to have taken their 
gun and their lives in their hands and gone upon the 
road as highwaymen? And would not the State have 
been less disgraced if they had done this than for them 
to have used their position and high place as senators 
to cause the murder of their own officer as they tried to 
do? Is not the whole State compromised, blighted, 
and undignified by these political highbinders? Is it 
not a travesty upon the civilization of America to have 
such a crime shown, in such peaceful times, by the law- 
making power of the people? But these facts only show 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 119 

the character of civilization there is among the practical 
politicians of California. 

Can the crime of murder, sought to be accomplished 
by a body of State senators acting in their official capa- 
city, be overlooked, frowned down, laughed or ridiculed 
out of consideration by civilized people? Is not any 
state in the Union in a measure affected by this dis- 
grace of the law making power of a state trying to mur- 
der a man? But the mere statement of the facts is 
argument sufficient, and ought to arouse the people to 
a lively interest as to what is going on in a secret way 
in this God given country of ours. 

About the time the Senate failed to have the victim 
killed, the two great political parties had made their 
calls for State conventions, and these Solons were 
anxious to adjourn for a few days to attend to the 
necessary political machine work; but being unable to 
agree among themselves, Governor Stoneman prorogued 
the legislature for two weeks so as to give them all ample 
time. The legislature having adjourned, he went to 
Woodland on the morning train, and there at the flat 
was Mrs. Miller with her daughter Barbara, of slander 
affidavit fame. 

The victim was not there long until Craige was 
noticed from the window scurrying around the streets. 
He went out on the street and there was the mellifluous 
Bird with an expression of murderous wisdom and 
deep-set determination on his countenance. Just after 
that, the victim noticed this thug Conroy coming sliding 
into the back door of J. D. Stephens' Bank of Woodland. 

These indications were enough. They meant there 
was another plot to kill on foot, so he thought he would 
go up to the flat for a while and wait and see what 
would develop, for he was not much afraid since he was 



120 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

now armed as well as they. At the flat, he found Mrs. 
Miller still there and he began to tell her about the 
many and different ways and plots there had been to 
murder him, and during his conversation Jezebel and 
Barbara would look wild and disconcerted at each other. 

After a little time he happened to go to the window 
looking out on First Street, and there on the opposite 
side of the street near the corner stood Conroy and the 
negro McAfee, assassins of July 18th before mentioned, 
looking and glaring up where he lived. He called Mrs. 
Miller to the window and showed her these thugs, and 
said that they had already fixed up another plan to 
destroy him that afternoon or evening, for they knew he 
was going away to San Francisco in the morning. She 
came to the window and looked at them, and he told 
her about the white man's, Conroy' s, being in Hunt's 
room on the afternoon of July 17th to kill him, when 
he was lying on the lounge. 

Jezebel was writhing under this terrible arraignment, 
and when she could hold in no longer she said, "He 
talks like a crazy man, doesn't he, Mrs. Miller?" She 
replied, "Well, I don't know; Mr. Sullivan is a sensible 
man and this looks very strange." Soon after this 
colloquy Mrs. Miller went home and the thugs left their 
watching posts, and old Jezebel went over to Mr. 
Torrence's hotel on the opposite corner. 

Presently there came a rap on the door and the victim 
attended the same and found Sheriff Beamer and City 
Marshall Hoyt in waiting. It was instantly apparent 
that the conspiracy through Jezebel had sent them 
there, and that the marshal] had come along to take off 
some of the curse of the murder Sheriff, but just what 
their real object was at that time he did not know. 

He cordially invited them in and asked them to be 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 121 

seated, and after sitting for what seemed to be minutes, 
without a word being said, (the victim had treated them 
so nicely that they were entirely dumbfounded) the 
sheriff finally regained courage enough to say, "Sullivan, 
don't you know they think you are crazy?" He 
replied, in substance, "Mr. Sheriff, don't reason teach 
you that inasmuch as I was elected to the critical and 
responsible position of Enrolling Clerk of the State 
Senate, in the very fire of this insanity slander, when it 
was ripe and rife and was being scattered and rooted 
by all that money and influence could do, and I having 
held such position under the greatest adversities that 
were ever cast to the lot of man, that this insanity dodge 
is only for the purpose of ruining me and murdering 
me to save themselves, and don't you know that I 
know you are a party to this and helping them?" 

At about this point the sheriff said, "Well, Sullivan, 
I guess I shall have to take you." "Take me? What 
on?" "If you have authority which demands my associ- 
ation with you, I will go, otherwise I shall not go unless 
I desire." The sheriff said, "Well, they expect me to 
look out for you because they are afraid of you." He 
replied, "I have never made any threats against them." 

The sheriff said, "That makes them all the more 
afraid of you because you have not. I think you had 
better go over with me, and as you are going to San 
Francisco in the morning you will have some one to 
awaken you for the early train. ' ' 

The victim now sized up the situation about like this : 
"The sheriff had their perjured insanity papers of the 
district attorney. These conspirators were scared out 
of their boots for fear that he would kill some of them. 

And if he did not go over and sleep at the jail that 
night he would be arrested, and that might possibly 



122 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

beat him out of his office for the remainder of the 
session of the Legislature. Besides, their tool, Judge 
Garoutte, was free now to act and help them along ; so 
he thought discretion the better part of valor, and said 
to the sheriff, that he would not go with either of them, 
although he would go over alone in a little while. The 
promise (of the crazy man) was all they wanted, and 
left his house. Shortly, he went over to the jail and 
slept there that night under the conditions and for the 
reason stated. 

As soon as the victim arrived at the jail the sheriff 
commenced coaxing him for his pistol, and as an excuse 
said that it would not be right for an outsider to sleep 
in the jail with firearms ; and he further voluntarily 
promised upon his word as Sheriff of Yolo County, as 
a man and as a Mason, that if the victim would give up 
the pistol, he would express it to him at the Brooklyn 
Hotel, San Francisco, that very day. 

So thinking that the sheriff would not openly violate 
his word under such promises, the victim let him have 
the pistol, knowing that he could buy another at the 
Bay if the sheriff failed to keep his promise ; the victim 
also taking his chances in getting to the city without this 
firearm. The sheriff did not send the pistol as he 
promised, and the victim was not able to get it from 
him until three months afterwards, and then not until 
he was about to sue the sheriff for converting it to his 
own use. 

The real motive the sheriff had in depriving the victim 
of this pistol was to aid the conspiracy in killing him 
by thus depriving him through his official position and 
power, and deceit, of the means of self-defense. 

It was now getting late at night, so he wrapped him- 
self in the blankets that had enshrouded the forms of 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 123 

many felons, and there in that dark and lonely cell he 
lay engulfed in the thoughts of the many murderous 
plots that had been made against his life, and how the 
real cause of all them was, in the first instance, the 
devices of a vile and wicked woman. And he thought 
how the torch of destruction had been lighted by her 
and how it was then burning in the breast of some of 
the mightiest in the land, with nothing seemingly able 
to quench it but the murder of the innocent victim, who 
lay there that night in a prison cell through the murder- 
ing agency of the sheriff of the county. What a 
pitiable thought for our civilization in the State of the 
Golden West. Finally through the sheer exhaustion of 
his torturing condition he swooned away into a refresh- 
ing slumber and was up and ready for the morning train. 

Craige and his wife were on board the train at the 
Woodland depot in the morning bound for San Fran- 
cisco. With this exception, which was ominous, 
nothing of note occurred until at Suisun half way 
between Woodland and San Francisco. There three 
thugs came aboard the train and sat down in the same 
car with the victim. 

He very soon discovered that he was the object of 
their mission on the train. They were very poor actors 
in a murder plot, for they at once gave themselves away 
by their furtive glances at him, made with such an 
awkward attempt to conceal the same from his notice 
that a school boy might have detected their intentions. 

Craige formerly lived in San Francisco and being 
posted on thugs and fast women, it was a very easy 
matter for him through the immense wealth of his wife 
and father-in-law, Stephens, to have these thugs in- 
formed by telegraph to come up from San Francisco 
that morning and meet him on the train, where further 



124 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

and final arrangements could be made to follow and 
murder the victim at the best and safest place to do so. 
From even a slight consideration of the circumstances, 
it is an easy matter to see that that was the situation 
presented there that morning. 

Craige soon went into the baggage car and two of 
these thugs followed him in there, where they all 
remained until the train was on the ferry boat crossing 
the river at Benicia. Now the victim got off the car 
and was walking around on the boat. When he passed 
the saloon on the boat, he saw the thugs and Craige in 
there drinking. Upon being discovered, Craige im- 
mediately went on to the car, and the trio commenced 
to dance and sing, and one of them was heard to say, 
"We'll set 'em up in high stacks after you are planted." 

This remark he knew of course was meant for him, 
and he passed away and left these reveling fiends exult- 
ing over their contemplated gain of a sudden raise of 
money, by committing murder — a horrible thought, yet 
true. 

The train now soon left the boat and rolled away for 
San Francisco. It soon arrived at Vallejo Junction, 
where there was a boat which crossed this part of the 
bay carrying passengers to Vallejo. The victim here left 
the train just as it pulled out and took the boat for 
Vallejo, and thought he had thus evaded the plans and 
presence of the thugs and conspirators for that day, at 
least. But not so, the train he had just left met an up 
train at San Pablo, and the thugs, having seen him at 
the Junction as the train they were on was fast moving 
away, now at the first opportunity came back where he 
was at Vallejo Junction, waiting for the boat to take 
him to Vallejo. 

The boat waited for the passengers from these two 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 125 

trains, and had he known such fact he would have kept 
out of sight of the thugs, and then they would not have 
known where he was and would not have returned as 
they did. He was now apparently in another dangerous 
dilemma, not exactly between the devil and the deep sea, 
but between the devils and the deep bay, on a ferryboat 
with these thugs, whom he knew were there to kill him 
for money ; the victim having been disarmed at Wood- 
land by the sheriff for the purpose of giving these fellows 
a chance to murder him. Yet he was not much afraid, 
for he knew that they dare not shoot among the passen- 
gers and all he had to do was to keep well among them 
to be comparatively safe. 

The victim now commenced to talk in presence of the 
thugs, to an innocent fellow passenger, about the town 
of Cloverdale which was a long way up from the city of 
Napa on the line of this railroad from Vallejo. The 
conversation was had before the boat had commenced to 
cross over to Vallejo, and after the boat had crossed the 
bay and the passengers had taken the train for Napa and 
points further north on the road, the thugs of course 
being in close proximity, he again began talking to 
a passenger about Cloverdale and other points of interest 
in the mountains, where one might find good fishing 
and hunting in some lonely wild spot. 

This had the desired effect, for the murderers acted as 
though they surely thought they were soon going to find 
the victim a lonely fisherman on some isolated stream, 
or hunting in some wild jungle in the mountain wood. 
By the time the train arrived at Napa City, they were 
thoroughly saturated with the idea that he was going to 
Cloverdale and then to other points in the mountains to 
fish and hunt. 

Upon arriving at Napa City, he went out on the plat- 



126 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

form of the car and stood there looking as though he 
were a passenger who was going further. He tried to 
make it appear to the assassins that he was bound for 
Cloverdale. In due time the bell commenced to ring, 
announcing the departure of the train. It was now 
moving and the driver of a buss at the depot was 
arranging himself in his seat preparatory to driving 
away. 

The occasion being now presented he took advantage 
of the same by jumping from the train and hurriedly 
took a seat in the buss which drove quickly away, and 
the three thugs then Looking from the fast moving train 
began to realize that the person they were following to 
get a chance to kill was now being, surely and swiftly 
separated from them, and there being no reverse train 
for them to return on as at San Pablo, their murder 
money would be forever gone. 

In the afternoon along came the train from Calistoga 
bound for Vallejo and he went aboard. He looked 
through the cars, but the human hyenas were not aboard, 
so without further let or hindrance he arrived in San 
Francisco in due time, and repaired to the Brooklyn 
Hotel, but as he really expected, he found that Sheriff 
Beamer had not sent his revolver, so he went out and 
procured another, for he well knew that they would try 
to waylay him in this large city. 

On the fifth day of the victim's sojourn in the city, 
he saw a newspaper reporter from the Woodland 
"Democrat," who asked him if he had seen Frank 
Rhaum in the city. He had not, and on being so in- 
formed, the reporter said that he had just seen him at 
the Russ House, and away went the victim to the Russ 
House. On entering the hotel office, he saw Mr. 
Rhaum and Al Dedman engaged in a low, earnest con- 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 127 

versation, and as soon as they espied the victim they 
ceased talking and walked down the stairs and out of 
the hotel, without even speaking to the victim. 
Although they were well acquainted with him, they 
apparently were trying to avoid him. He then did a 
little detective work by shadowing them to Dedman's 
dive on Kearney Street, where they both entered. 

These men were of notoriously bad character. Mr. 
Rhaum was an ex- sheriff of Yolo County at Woodland, 
California, and was there tried for the secret murder 
of his deputy, John Maltby, a few years before. He 
expended all his money in defense of his life and was 
now broke, and, of course, wanted some of the fodder 
with which the conspiracy were feeding these murder 
beasts. Dedman had recently lived at Woodland, 
where the victim saved him from prison by acting as his 
attorney; and a few years before that time Dedman was 
tried for a secret attempt to murder two women at 
Knight's Landing in Yolo County, California. Now 
the victim knowing all these facts about this pair, and 
being certain that Rhaum did not have any legitimate 
business at San Francisco, is it any wonder that he 
hastened away to the Russ House to find out what he 
could about them? 

Dedman had seen the victim in the city since his 
recent arrival several times -before his conference with 
Mr. Rhaum at the Russ House, but never spoke to him. 
Now he was constantly putting himself in his immediate 
presence and attempting to engage him in conversation, 
and continued to do so for three or four days, until the 
victim considered the matter had gone far enough, and 
said, "See here, Dedman, I know as well as you do 
what your intentions are toward me. If you had the 
gratitude of a dog, you would try to help me and save 



128 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

me instead of trying to get the drop on me to kill me 
for the promise of a few dollars, which you would never 
get even if you could do the job. I saw you with 
Rhaum and knew he gave you a few dollars and has 
promised you a big lot if you could catch me, but you 
never can. I am now heeled as well as you, and if you 
want it out begin right here, and if you don't begone 
and never look at me again. ' ' 

Dedman said, "Sullivan you are right, and these 
fellows at Woodland are stiffs and bilks. They never 
pay a man as they agree. ' ' At this the victim walked 
away, and that was the last time he ever saw Dedman. 

Rhaum was known to be acting with the conspiracy 
at Woodland, and the logic of the situation was, that 
since Craige' s three thug plot had been detected and out- 
generalled, the conspiracy had sent Rhaum down from 
Woodland to have Dedman kill the victim. 

They assumed that because the victim had defended 
Dedman, hence he must be some particular friend to 
him, and that through friendship Dedman could induce 
him into some place where he could be killed. This 
pair having met at the Russ House and been unex- 
pectedly discovered by the victim, they hurried away to 
Dedman' s dive to finish the bargain, where Rhaum gave 
him a few dollars for expenses and promised him a 
large sum upon the successful completion of the killing 
job. Then Rhaum went back to Woodland so as to be 
as far away from the murder as possible, for, if close by 
it, the decent people of Woodland would surely sus • 
pect him. 

Nothing further of note occurred at San Francisco, 
and he returned to Woodland preparatory to assuming 
his duties as Enrolling Clerk of the Senate, and the next 
day the Legislature reconvened, and from that time on 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. . 129 

until the close of the session there was nothing occurred 
that would merit noting here. During the closing days 
of the session, the victim commenced devising some 
plan by which he might get some further direct and un- 
disputable evidence of the guilt of the first originators 
of this conspiracy ; namely, Ball, Craige, and Jezebel ; 
and in this relation he thought of a woman residing at 
Folson, whom he had gratuitously defended against the 
persecutions of a wealthy person, while he was residing 
at Folson. 

The next evening after the Legislature adjourned, 
sine die, the victim went up to Folson and interviewed 
this woman, and he gave her detail after detail of the 
plots and attempts to murder him, and particularly 
described the poison plot of July 14th, when Jezebel 
gave him the poison. Of course she felt shocked and 
horrified at such wickedness, and wished she could only 
be of some help to him so as to pay him for his previous 
defense of her. 

At this point, he detailed his plan of action, which is 
briefly told as follows: She was to take the morning 
train for Sacramento and go direct to the drug store of 
J. S. Meredith and tell him that the victim was a worth- 
less wretch ; that he had been at Folson and talked 
horridly about him and accused him of trying to decoy 
him into his house on M Street to have him murdered ; 
that he had not only talked about his wife, but had 
slandered her since he moved from Folson; that she 
had a notion to go to Woodland and see all the parties, 
and if she could get them to back her up, she could 
easily give him a dose that would fix him up for the 
next country right away. 

The victim told her that Meredith being broke and 
already in the conspiracy and anxious to get some 



130 , A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

money out of it, would fall in with her idea and might 
go to Woodland with her so as to get closer to the com- 
bine and its money. At Woodland, she was to go to 
Jezebel's house, and after properly getting into her 
presence, say, that the victim was up at Folson slander- 
ing her, Ball, Craige, and others, and to generally broil 
him until he was ignominiously done, and finally pro- 
pose that if they would stand in and protect her, she 
could and would give him a dose of poison ; and if they 
would tell her what to get or write it down she would 
get it at Meredith's drug store, but that she would like 
some little slip of paper with their names on so that she 
would be sure of protection after he was dead. 

Then she was to come back and get the poison, and 
the victim would be on the watch and get the paper 
and poison from her and then he, would have some 
more direct evidence of their guilt. But again the best 
laid plans of mice and men "they aft gang aglee." 

This same John McComber of Folson was spying out 
for the combine, and instead of his former friend com 
ing to Sacramento, Mr. McComber came, and went to 
Woodland and saw the millionaire Stephens, who came 
over to Brigadier Bugby's office and there they sought 
to plan for the victim's arrest on a criminal charge, but 
gave up before they began. 

This little plan doesn't amount to much only to show 
that the victim never had a friend but that this criminal 
and money combine could control and cause them to 
even conspire against his life. What was true in this 
particular instance would be true with any poor person 
who had money against him, seeking their ruin either 
morally, financially, or to the extent of murder, and 
the quicker the poor understand this the better able 
they will be to protect themselves. 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 131 

After the failure to entrap the enemy as last related, 
the victim went over to Woodland, and then Jezebel 
left the flat and took rooms at Mr. Torrence's Hotel 
opposite Ball & Craige's law offices. 

There was still murder in the air, and that night the 
victim nailed down the windows and barred the doors 
so that entrance could not be made unless the doors or 
windows were smashed; and he very confidently 
thought that whoever smashed them would not smash 
any the next day. So as soon as it was dark he lay 
down and went to sleep, and about half past eleven 
o'clock he was awakened by a number of persons com- 
ing up the stairs. 

They made a great and unusual noise and entered 
Ball & Craige's law offices adjoining. Judging from 
their footsteps and number of different voices, there 
were as many as six persons. After noting the compar- 
atively early time it was, he did not then think it meant 
anything wrong, until they had swept and swept enough 
to do the office a dozen times or more, and then they 
would come out into the hall and sweep, then wait and 
keep quiet, and then begin again. By this time, he 
was up and dressed, with a good revolver in each hand, 
rather courting than fearing an attack. 

Now down the hall they would go, then back again 
and sweep and slash and noise around. Then they 
stopped and held a low, whispered talk in front of the 
victim's main entrance door in the hall. Then they 
moved up the hall toward the head of the stairs and 
stamped the floor and kicked the sides of the base 
boards. At this juncture, the victim stood upon a chair 
and looked over the transom and saw the perjured negro 
Linn, the negro murderer of July 18th, and a white 
man glaring at the entrance door to his flat. 



132 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

The victim then quietly but but quickly made 
a kind of fort out of the bed and furniture, in the 
shape of a V, the apex pointing toward the door; then 
he unbarred the door and left it so it was only locked 
with a common lock that could be burst open with only 
a slight shoulder shove. Then he planted himself in 
the apex of the improvised fort and would cough and 
make a noise so they would be sure he was there. 

The victim knew the enemies' plan was to aggravate 
him so he would open his door and come out into the 
hall, where they could kill him, and then they could 
all swear that he was the aggressor, and commenced the 
fight. 

He built his fort and fixed the door so that it could 
easily be smashed in, thinking perhaps when they found 
they could not get him out, they would break in, and 
then he would commence shooting; and he felt confi- 
dent that he could pile up these dead niggers in his 
room before they could get to him. or discover the 
ambush; and thus he would have them dead in his 
room which would be conclusive evidence of their guilt 
and his innocence, and the real conspirators would be 
exposed on the trial that would follow. 

But the assassins not being able to carry out the plot 
according to instruction, and not having brains enough 
to think of breaking in the door or courage enough to 
do so if they thought of it, evacuated the battle field 
with only defeat to report to Generalissimo ; who had 
slunk away to Colusa County after this great plan of 
battle had been made, and left its execution in the 
hands of his law partner, who fell through himself at 
the Opera House. So who was the crazier man, the 
one who made this murder plot, or the victim who 
defeated it? 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 133 

The next evening the victim retired very early with 
house fortified as in the beginning of the preceding 
night and had not much of any fears of another attempt. 
Along about one o'clock at night, he awoke and every- 
thing was as still as death. He lay there thinking of 
the feelings that must pervade the breasts of brave men 
as they marched forth to battle and to die, and how in 
a much more torturing manner he had so many times 
experienced the feelings of expected murder and death, 
and that there never was a pen that could describe 
emotions and feelings of a man under such circum- 
stances. 

He studied on the degenerate attributes of a moral 
traitor; that is, one who, while professing friendship, 
at the same time, was planning to secretly murder you, 
and in this connection he ran down the category of 
criminals such as murderers for money, pirates, hired 
assassins, etc. , and none could compare in degenerate 
depravity with the moral traitor. 

And then he considered how he was, and had been 
for the last several months with such wretches all 
secretly planning and seeking the life blood in his veins. 
As he lay there cogitating his situation in this manner, 
he heard some one coming up the stairs. He listened 
and they came up and stopped at the head of the stairs, 
so he reached up and took one of his pistols. The 
victim knew the person to be a man by his step, and he 
remained motionless for as much as five minutes at the 
head of the stairs; then he moved along until he was 
directly opposite to his bed room door, which opened 
into the hall, and there stopped. 

The victim had by this time swung his feet out of bed 
and was sitting on its edge, waiting for further develop- 
ments, but the fellow after hanging around for a few 



134 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

moments went off down the stairs. It was afterwards 
ascertained that this midnight caller was George 
Rhaum, brother of our Frank Rhaum, and that he had 
been all the night getting on a whiske} r brave to come 
there and murder the victim for the money his maudlin 
brain thought he might get if he did so. But the fact 
is he never had the courage of his desire and when the 
time came for him to make the attempt the strain was 
so great on him that it killed the liquor in him, and he 
slunk away ; further, he never would have at that time 
or at any other time stood a ghost of a show to have 
done so. 

Generalissimo had now lost his nerve and was hiding 
at his ranch in Colusa County, leaving Stephens and 
his crew to tremble with fear of being shot on sight 
though the victim had never uttered a word of threat 
against any of them. This was one thing they were 
afraid of; if he would let his mind be known then they 
might be able to form some plan of action. So to find 
out what he thought, they conceived and tried to 
execute a brilliant plan by sending their servile assessor, 
Huston, out to the little town of Winters and bring in 
Dave Sullivan, who being of the same name could 
certainly blarney the victim up and draw him out. 

Dave came and commenced by telling the victim all 
about how he had outgeneraled them all and done them 
up to the queen's taste, and how glad he was, and went 
on at a great rate praising the fine qualities of the victim, 
until he, in his mind, had the poor victim galvanized 
with his own greatness, and then came the question the 
conspiracy had sent him there to find out: "Say, 
Sullivan, are you going to kill these fellows, or are you 
going to law them? And what kind of action or pro- 
ceeding are you going to begin?" The victim parried 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 135 

these questions and let his brother Irish friend and 
namesake unwind his blarney ball. 

Poor Dave at that time was not a bad man and would 
not have mortally harmed the victim, but just wanted 
to stand in where the material help was. After Dave 
was tired pumping, the victim took up the handle and 
commenced by giving him some of his blarney and 
said, "Now, Dave. I know you take a great pride in 
the name of Sullivan ; so tell me what you know about 
those fellows trying to ruin me?' ' 

"Well, I'll tell you; they think I am a friend of 
yours, and so I am ; and they have plenty of money 
but you have to earn every cent you get. Well, one 
night during the Harlan trial I was down in Powers' 
saloon drinking, but I was not drunk at all, and 
Rhaum, Ball, Craige, Sprague, Judge Garoutte, Gas 
Hunt, were all there, and I heard them talking about 
some one's being crazy. They were talking very low 
and in a kind of whisper. I saw they didn't want out- 
siders to hear, and I was kind of lying in a chair and 
pretending to be asleep so as to hear. I found out they 
were talking about you, and Ball said, 'Who is that- 
fellow in the chair? Some one said, 'Oh; he is drunk; 
he don't know anything; let him go,' and then Ball 
came over and pulled up my hat and looked me in the 
face, and said, 'That fellow don't know, don't you fool 
yourself. ' 

"They talked some more and I found out that they 
were trying to fix up a job to send you to the asylum. 
They wanted to get rid of you on account of your wife. 
After a while someone said, 'Let's go into the room 
here and fix this thing up,' so they went in, and that 
is all I really know any more than Huston brought me 
here to find out about what you are going to do, and 



136 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

cautioned me not to let anybody know that he came 
after me. He also said that he was going to keep out of 
trouble." 

The victim keenly realized that in order to thoroughly 
convince the public that so many persons of such high 
standing had been guilty of so much criminality he 
ought to try to get as much direct and incriminating 
evidence against them as was possible to obtain; and 
that as he had now worn out their insanity slander and 
proved that to be false, the people ought to be satisfied 
that any reasonable thing he might say about these con- 
spirators was true. He also realized that if he could 
now, after all that had happened, scare them into 
arresting him for insanity, and thus get them into court, 
and placed upon record where they could not lie out of 
it, and there in court again defeat them, they could 
never gainsay the main features of the record ; and that 
such proceeding and result would authenticate the tale of 
his persecution and attempted secret murder story. For 
one or the other must be true ; he was either crazy, or 
they had tried to ruin and murder him. 
• He reasoned that in such a court proceeding, he 
would be the defendant and entitled to the process of 
the court to obtain his witnesses, and that he would 
have the whole army subpoenaed and sworn and their 
testimony reported, and while all would now lie about 
it, .they could not all come into court and swear to lies 
where there were so many complicated facts, without a 
being detected and shown up before the people. He 
further reasoned that possibly some of them would tell 
the truth and then he would have attempted murder 
established by their own friends. He knew that they 
would have as many doctors and lawyers to show that 
he was crazy as they desired, and that Judge Garoutte? 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 137 

their ready-made court, would decide just as they 
desired, and adjudge him insane and order him confined 
in an asylum, and then after he was adjudged insane 
by the ready-made Judge, he would dump the whole 
gang, court, doctors, and all overboard. 

But how could he do this? Here it is : Up to that 
time, there never was a known case in the State where 
a man had a jury trial after he had been found crazy by 
a court; and this band of murderers having spent so 
much more time in committing crime than in reading 
law, did not know there was a law in the State entitling 
a person to a jury trial in such a case. So he planned 
and reasoned that when the proper time came he would 
reverse the perjured court and doctors by a verdict of 
soundness, and that he would have them done up in 
good and undisputable shape. 

So to carry out the plan just outlined, he commenced 
talking freely to different people and explaining to them 
the details of the murder plots, and informed this Mr. 
Torrence of the Woodland Capitol Hotel, Assemblyman 
L. B. Adams of Yolo County. Melt Inyard, Anthony 
Sweeny, and many others about the whole matter, and 
after a few days' talking on this general plan to incite 
them to cause his arrest, he thought it about time to 
play the last card by mailing a certain letter along the 
same line. 

The facts about mailing this letter came about in this 
way : The victim' s mail had been tampered with in the 
Woodland postofiice ever since this conspiracy began. 
To illustrate, he had addressed a letter to a certain 
place in Montana Territory at the Woodland postofiice, 
and the words Montana Territory were erased and 
Nebraska inserted in their place so that the letter went 
to the place of the same name in Nebraska, and from 



138 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

there of course it was sent to the dead letter office, and 
afterwards was returned to the victim. He then and 
ever since has had the written evidence of this mail 
tampering. Now upon the strength of their own crimes, 
he prepared a deco} T letter fictitiously addressed to 
Detective John Bassett at San Francisco. It contained 
nine pages of fool's cap paper, and explained all about 
how Bassett' s partner had been to Woodland in the 
night to see him, and how a certain millionaire lawyer 
was helping them, and would furnish all the money 
necessary to prosecute these murderers, and how in a 
few days they would all be arrested with all the plans 
and details and names of the persons exposed. 

So to make sure that the conspirators would get the 
letter, the victim informed Jezebel about the same and 
when he should mail it; and he knew this letter, with 
what he had told the people, would cause the con- 
spirators as a last resort to have him arrested. So one 
morning he mailed the letter, and of course it was soon 
read by the contingent then at Woodland. There was 
hurrying and scurrying all around among the con- 
spirators, and it is easily imagined how they now con- 
sulted and said: 

"The victim must be subdued in some way or ruin 
will follow all of us." Homes, families, reputation, 
and money were now at stake and must be protected. 
It made no difference if the God of Heaven and the 
Creator of all had been outraged and set at defiance, 
there was nothing for consideration now but worldly 
interest and self-protection. It did seem as if God 
himself was after them by reason of all their defeats 
with so much money to back them. Many of them 
could now surely be sent to prison for their bold crimes 
unless this crazy man was sent to an asylum. He now 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 139 

had the millionaire backer to help him, as they had 
seen in the letter, and action must be taken at once. 
So under these harrowing conditions of the guilty cul- 
prits, they sent for the Generalissimo of the band, now 
hiding on his Colusa ranch balancing on the sharp, 
precipitating edge of hope and fear, hoping that the 
winds of the black blast would soon blow over, and that 
his recent crimes would not find him out, fearing only 
of the judgment of the people upon his exposure. 

Upon his arrival, the band assembled, and from the 
best information obtainable, he, in substance, said; "I 
knew after our first attempts at poisoning him, we would 
have a hard time to ever kill him, and particularly 
without getting caught. I have long since given up the 
idea that he could be killed in secret, and I came to this 
conclusion when he beat my Clunie House plot with 
Judge Armstrong. 

"You see how he worked it with our female friend ; he 
would tell her what he wanted us to know and keep 
the rest to himself. You fellows thought you knew his 
whole mind through her; but to your sorrow you have 
found out that you did not. 

"You see by this letter to Bassett that we are now in 
a closer place than we have ever had him, for murder 
is something that the people will not stand, and though 
we did not kill him we all tried hard enough, and if the 
story of our actions ever gets before the people, we are 
done for forever. We may keep the most of our property, 
but before the people we will be killed if not sent to 
prison. And now as a matter of self-interest we had 
better have him arrested for insanity, and if we only 
get him into the asylum for a day, he' 11 be broken down 
and nobody will believe anything he says; and even if 



140 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

we fail, the fact of the charge against him will hurt him 
somewhat. 

"But you know we can't fail; our judge will do as we 
say ; that' s what he was elected to do. When I received 
the news of the Bassett letter on my ranch up in Colusa, 
I knew we must face the music and dance correctly, or 
be ostracized forever. Now the best thing to do is to 
have Tommy Gibson, little Tommy, who brought the 
poison to Dr. Dick, make affidavit that the victim is 
crazy, and we will get him landed for a while, anyway, 
and, as I said, that will break him down, and it may be 
for a few dollars we can keep him there for life." So 
the conference broke up and the plan was attempted to 
be put into execution. 

It was now October 8, 1886, and the victim had just 
left his office and was going over to the Court House to 
get a copy of the district attorney's insanity affidavit, 
when he observed Sheriff Beamer approaching him with 
a quick, important step, his face beaming with delight, 
his eyes sparkling with joy, his mouth grinning with 
satisfaction, and in a sense stretched down to his boots. 
As he met the victim he said, "They are after you 
again; I will have to take you this time sure. They 
want you for insanity. " " Who do you mean by they?' ' 

"Why, you know those fellows at the bank corner." 

"I expect you mean Ball, Craige, Stephens, Fiske, 
and the whole gang?" "Yes; that's about the size 
of it." "Well, I'll go; show me your papers." "I 
haven't got any papers with me; there is a new com- 
plaint made; it is in my office." "Have you a war- 
rant?" "No: there has been no warrant issued." 

"You know that you have no right to arrest me with- 
out a warrant, but I don't care about that; I'll go up to 
the Craft House and get my dinner, and then go over 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 141 

and be a crazy man for a while. All right, said the 
sheriff; I know that you will do as you agree." So 
after dinner, the man who had planned his own arrest 
went over to the sheriff's office to have them play crazy 
man with him for a while to prove their own guilt. 

Then he asked to see the complaint made against him, 
and found as he expected, that it was sworn to by young 
Tommy Gibson, who brought the poison to Dr. Dick on 
July 14th with which the victim was poisoned. He 
read the complaint over carefully and found that it was 
fatally defective, because it did not comply, even sub- 
stantially, with the requirements of the statutes in such 
cases. But he kept the knowledge of this defect closely 
to himself; for he wanted to take them all by surprise 
and cast all the odium on them that he could before the 
number he expected would be present at the hearing. 
He talked with the sheriff and found out that the Court 
was going to proceed with the farce the next day, and 
that twenty witnesses had been subpoenaed to swear 
against him. 

Feeling perfectly secure by reason of this defective 
complaint, he complacently thought what obloquy and 
shame he would cast upon them the next day, when in 
open court before all the lawyers, witnesses and people 
present, he would move and compel the court to 
reluctantly discharge him from arrest, by reason of the 
insufficient complaint against him. And what a fool 
he would make of their district attorney, who had 
sworn to a complaint that he did not now dare to stand 
upon, and then had drawn another that did not comply 
with the law. The people would certainly think that if 
any person was crazy and ought to be sent to an asylum 
it was the district attorney instead of the victim. 



142 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

Besides the witnesses would not feel like swearing quite 
so strong against him. 

This evening old Jezebel came over to the Sheriff's 
office, smiling with satisfaction. The sheriff and one or 
two others were there, and after getting herself squared 
around for action she opened her fire by saying: "Well, 
they have got you, havn' t they? Now you will soon be 
in the asylum where you ought to be, and I guess then 
you will keep your mouth shut. ' ' He let her go on in 
this strain until her string was about out, and then in 
terms he said: 

"You, they, nor all he corrupt power in the state can. 
never send me to an asylum. The truth is mighty 
and will prevail. Do not think because these parties 
own the court, district attorney, and half of the county 
that they can for a moment own me or the facts. There 
is not one of you that thinks for a moment of the trap, 
you are in ; or that you yourselves will be buried in the 
grave which you are digging for me." She said, 
"Why, you are as happy as a clam; I expected to see 
you all broken up. " Then one of the officers spoke and 
said, "Sullivan is a brick, isn't he?" He retorted, "No 
but you will find that I am a whole brick house with 
rooms to let before I am through with you all yet." 
With this the modern Jezebel retired from the insanity 
scene forever. 

At 10 a. m. the next day the Superior Court of Yolo 
County convened Judge Garoutte presiding, The 
twenty witnesses were present with anxious and bated 
breath for a chance to swear away the liberty of the 
innocent for the favor of the mighty. There were only 
six lawyers with a few officials, belonging to the Court 
House, present. From this sparse attendance upon 
such a sensational proceeding, he was satisfied that the 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 143 

conspiracy had been keeping the hearing as secret as 
possible, so there might be but a few people present 
to witness this outrage on justice, for they well knew 
that it would not bear the light of decency shining upon 
it. Judge Garoutte on taking the bench ordered the 
sheriff to open court. 

The Sheriff with his customary assumption of dignity 
ejaculated, "Hear ye! hear ye! hear ye! the Superior 
Court of Yolo County is now open pursuant to adjourn- 
ment. ' ' 

Court — Mr. Clerk, what's on the calendar for hearing 
this morning? 

Clerk — The matter of P. M. Sullivan, an alleged 
insane person. 

Court — I see the doctors and witnesses; are all pres- 
ent. We will proceed ; the witnesses will stand up and 
be sworn ; which was done. • 

Defendant — May it please Your Honor, before taking 
any testimony in this matter, I 

Court — You will please be seated, sir; the Court 
cannot hear you. 

Defendant — May it please Your Honor, I am the 
defendant in this proceeding, and I 

Court — You cannot be heard; it would be prepos- 
terous to allow an insane man to be heard in court. 

Defendant — Sane or insane, sir, is the question to be 
determined here, and I have a natural and constitutional 
right to be heard in my own defense. I am, and have 
been for years, an honorable attorney of all the courts 
of this State, and to say it is preposterous to hear me in 
my own defense, is a proposition without a parallel ; is 
contrary to natural right, the rules of jurisprudence, the 
state constitution. 

Court — If you have any motion to make, or anything 



144 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

of a strictly legal nature bearing on the case, I will hear 
that. 

Defendant — Most respectfully I have, and have twice 
been on the point of presenting the same, when I was 
prevented by the Court. I move that the complaint 
charging me with insanity be dismissed, and that I 
forthwith and forever be discharged. The ground of 
motion is, that this complaint, charging me with insanity, 
does not comply with the requirements fo Section 2210 
of the Political Code upon which it is based. That 
Section requires complaints of this character must be 
made before a magistrate, with judicial functions, and 
this complaint is made before Frank Sprague, the dis- 
trict attorney, who is not now, and by the votes of th e 
people and grace of God, never will be a magistrate. 

The court looked around at the lawyers present, who 
were smiling, thus in dicating that the alleged insane man 
had the best of the Court, district attorney, and all the 
combination of criminals. The Court grasped the 
situation and without ado said: "The defendant's point 
is well taken ; it would only be a waste of time to try 
to hold a man on a defective complaint of this kind, for 
he would certainly obtain a Writ of Habeas Corpus and 
upon the same obtain his liberty. The defendant is 
discharged. 

The victim then arose and with more grace than he 
ever before practiced, thanked the Court and bowed 
himself out. But as he was walking away from the bar 
of the Court, the Judge said, to young Gibson, the 
accuser, "Do you want to make another complaint?' ' 

Gibson said, "I don't know." Court: "Well, if you 
do come here and I will write one and swear you to 
it. ' ' Gibson sat still and speechless. The Court again 
said to him, "Come here and make another complaint. " 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 1+5 

And as the victim left the Court Room, the Judge was 
writing a new complaint against him, for insanity. 

The victim utilized his liberty respite by going over 
into the city, and there met Mr. Hollinsworth, one of 
the heaviest stockholders of Stephens' Bank, and he 
said to him, "I have just knocked out the Bank's judge, 
district attorney, lawyers, and all in that insanity con- 
spiracy against me. Don't you think I am quite a legal 
knocker out for an insane man?" Mr. Hollinsworth 
was like the boy we once heard about, he had nothing 
to say. Of course these tactics were for the purpose of 
stigmatizing the conspiracy and its judge. 

He had not gone far in advertising the gang in this 
way before the sheriff came up to him and said, "Well, 
I am after you again." "All right," he said, "here I 
am, and I will knock you all out again ; have you a 
warrant? If not, I shall not go this time." "Yes; 
you told me that, so I have a warrant; here it is," 
showing it. And the victim was again led to the 
slaughter pen. He was allowed to remain sane only 
for a little while. Kind of presto change business, now 
sane, now insane. 

After arriving at the jail, he examined the new com- 
plaint against him and found it to be in the hand writ- 
ing of Judge Garoutte. It was fatally defective in not 
complying with the law in such cases. He immediately 
prepared a petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, and 
found the Judge in the Clerk's office, to whom he 
presented the petition, and asked that an order for a 
Writ of Habeas Corpus be issued upon it. 

The Judge looked the petition over and said, "What is 
the use of this? Suppose the papers are defective and 
you are again discharged, they will arrest you again. ' ' 

The victim told the judge that they might arrest him 



146 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

until they grew as black in the face as they were at 
heart, but that they would never get him into an 
asylum. The judge made the requested order for the 
reason, if he had refused to do so, he would have been 
subject to an action for $5,000 damages under the 
statute of California. 

The Writ of Habeas Corpus having been granted, the 
next thing was to get a hearing, so he went again to the 
judge and requested him to grant a hearing on it that 
afternoon ; but he refused to grant a hearing that after- 
noon, because he said that he had another matter to 
hear, and besides he did not suppose that it made any 
difference when it was heard. But upon pressure he 
set the hearing down for the day after tomorrow at two 
o'clock p. m. Now the reason that the judge set the 
hearing for the day after tomorrow in the afternoon, 
was because he calculated to have the victim in the 
asylum before that time ; and then of course there could 
be no such hearing. Therefore note the moral perjury 
of this villainous judge who now sits in the people's 
court in legal judgment over their lives, their property 
and honor in California. 

It was now two o'clock p. m. of the same day, 
October 9th. And the victim was sitting at a window 
in the sheriff's office from which, he could see the 
approach of persons coming from the city to the court 
house, and he observed many of the witnesses against 
him who had been in attendance of the morning session 
of the court coming to and entering the court house. 
At the first sight of these witnesses he divined the situ- 
ation to be; that the conspiracy had ordered the court 
to proceed with the insanity hearing that afternoon, and 
make an order that the victim should be confined in the 
asylum. And then it was further plain what the judge 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 147 

referred to, when he refused to hear the Habeas Corpus, 
and said he had another matter that afternoon. 

The victim now went into the court room and there 
saw many of the witnesses, who were in the conspiracy 
shying and trembling, notably the cur was shaking like 
a sliver on a rail in a high wind, and many others, 
whose legs quivered until it could be said, they were 
tired and about to resign nature's position. And if one 
could hear such poor, disgraced legs speak, they would 
undoubtedly hear them say : 

"We are willing to prop and support any mortal, 
providing he possesses even a scintilla of the elements of 
manhood, but when we are compelled to walk and carry 
around such counterfeits as these, who have betrayed 
every trust confided to them, and committed every 
moral and legal crime in the whole category, we rebel 
and are willing to be committed to the dust rather 
than to further pursue our nauseating calling. ' ' 

Dr. Keating, an eminent physician of Woodland, was 
solicited by the conspiracy to act as a commissioner of 
lunacy upon this hearing, but he looked upon the mat- 
ter as a job and farce, and refused to have anything to 
do with it. Some of the other doctors who were there 
as witnesses at the morning session of court, now refused 
to take any further part in the play, and as reasons 
stated that when it came to such a pass, an open out- 
rage, that an alleged crazy man could legally throw 
down the district attorney, court and all as was done 
that morning, they didn' t want any more stock in such 
a company. 

The lone victim now sat there musing his fate, but 
rather amusing himself over their fate, for he knew he 
was soon to be adjudged insane by the conspiracy's 
judge; but that he would soon have a jury trial and 



148 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

reverse the doctors, court and all, and then what a 
plight they would be in with the moral effect of such a 
verdict against them. In a sense it would be an im- 
peachment of the doctors and judge, besides it would 
be self-evident proof that all he had said against them 
was true. 

Now he conceived the idea of burlesquing this coming 
insanity examination and making it as farcial and out- 
rageous as possible; by cross-questioning and tangling 
up the willing witnesses, who were so anxious to swear 
away his liberty for the simple promise of favor from 
the conspiracy, which they never could obtain. And 
thereby destroy them by their own mouths, with which 
they were attempting to destroy him. Now about this 
time in came the judge with settled and fixed determi- 
nation to obey the orders of the conspiracy, and thus 
commit a permeditated injury, through the forms of the 
law, upon an innocent man who never did him any 
harm. 

Without a formal opening the Court said, "Dr. Clark 
and Dr. McFarland, they (meaning the conspiracy) 
have selected you to act as commissioners, come forward 
and be sworn." With commendable obedience to 
orders and with great alacrity, they responded and were 
sworn in to do worse and more contemptible work than 
bloody assassins. 

At this point in the tragedy, the victim arose and 
stated that he protested against the Court's proceeding 
with his examination, for the reason the complaint filed 
against him was fatally defective, and did not comply 
with the law in such cases, and the Court admitted such 
to be the fact by granting a Habeas Corpus upon such 
grounds; and therefore the court could not legally 
proceed with his examination until the Habeas Corpus 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 149 

hearing was over, and the court had formerly decided 
the complaint to be good. The victim further said, 
"You cannot legally hold me now on a defective com- 
plaint any more than you could this morning, the law 
or your legal power is no greater now than it was then." 

The Court made no reply but arbitrarily called J. T. 
Gibson, the drug clerk, to the stand and instructed him 
to tell what he knew or had heard about the defendant' s 
being crazy. 

Witness — Well, I can't tell. 

Court — Don't you know anything about it? 

Witness — Yes. 

Court — What is it? 

Witness — Well, he's crazy. 

Court — How do you know? 

Witness — I don't know, only he's crazy. 

Court — Can't you tell something you have seen him 
do, or heard him say, that will be evidence he is crazy. 

Witness — I don't know what to say. 

Court — Don't you know something that would make 
you think he is crazy? Something you have seen him 
do or heard him say? 

Witness — I never saw or heard him say anything. 

Court — Haven't you heard someone say he's crazy? 

Witness — Yes; I have. 

Court — Well, who have you heard say he was crazy? 

Witness — Why, Ball and Craige, and Fiske and 
Stephens, you, the district attorney, and others. 

Court — Tell what he said when he asked you your 
name, and all about it. 

Witness — Well, I and Sweeney and Jim were setting 
on a box in front of the drug store, and he came along 
and after talking to Sweeney, he asked me my full 
name; and I didn't want to answer him, and he said 



150 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

to Sweeney, "See how red my face got, and not to 
forget it, ' ' and I got up and went in the drug store. 

Court — Is that all that was said? 

Witness — Yes, that is all. 

Court — Do you know anything else he has done or 
said to any person? 

Witness — No; I don't know any more. 

Court — That will do ; stand aside. 

The victim now arose and addressed the Court as 
follows: "May it please Your Honor, I move the testi- 
mony of the witness, Gibson, be stricken out, because 
it is irrelevant, immaterial and incompetent. It is 
irrelevant because it in no way conceivable relates to the 
issue being examined. It is immaterial because it does 
not prove nor tend to prove the issue or any part of it. 
And if it proves or tends to prove anything, it is the 
witness's incapacity, but willingness to testify to some- 
thing if he knew how ," Court interrupting: "The 

motion is overruled ; Mr. Gibson, stand aside. ' ' 

Defendant — With the Court's permission I desire to 
ask the witness a few questions before he leaves the 
stand. 

Court — You must be very brief about it; I do not pro- 
pose to take up much time in this small matter. 

Defendant — Mr. Gibson, did we ever speak together 
or to each other except as you have mentioned here in 
Court? 

Witness — That was the only time 

Defendant — Did you about nine o' clock on the morn- 
ing of July 14th last past leave the drug store in which 
you work and go to the dental office of Dr. Dick on an 
errand in which I was concerned? 

Court — You need not answer that question. 

Defendant — The question is only preliminary and 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 151 

intended to serve as a basis for certain other questions 
to follow which will elicit very important discoveries, 
and show some very material facts bearing on the issue, 
and if the answers are not apparently material, I will 
ask the Court to strike them all out. So I think the 
Court ought to allow the witness to answer the question 
under these conditions. 

Court — The Court thinks you have gone about far 
enough with this witness, but you may ask another 
question or two, and we will see about it then. 

Defendant — Mr. Gibson, upon the morning mentioned 
did you take from the drug store where you are 
employed a dose of poison . Here the court inter- 
rupted the question by saying, "You can't ask the 
witness anything about poison ; that is another matter, 
a criminal action which is not being tried here. ' ' 

Defendant — I propose to show by this witness that on 
the morning mentioned he, at the instance of the con- 
spiracy, took a dose of poison, prepared at the drug 
store where he works by Dr. Strong, to the dental office 
of Dr. Dick adjoining the flat where I live, and there 
gave such poison to Dr. Dick to be secretly administered 

to me with murderous intent and it was so done . 

The court here again interrupted and peremptorily 
ordered the witness to leave the stand. 

Of course the victim could not control the Court or 
keep the witness on the stand, but he was very well 
satisfied with the results from the witness and the Court. 
He had them where they looked smaller to him than a 
fly speck on the Rocky Mountains. While as an Amer- 
ican citizen living under the best government the world 
ever knew, and they as a part of such government, he 
felt sorry for their criminal hearts. 

After the exposure made by the little drug clerk, the 



152 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

Court enquired of its Clerk if the subpoena in the mat- 
ter under examination had been returned, and was 
informed that there had been no subpoena issued, that 
the witnesses were all there without having been sub- 
poenaed. 

At this point, Mr. Torrence, proprietor of the Capitol 
Hotel at Woodland, asken to be sworn that he might 
retire, so the Court called him to the stand and instructed 
him to state all he knew about Sullivan's being crazy, 
and emphasized the fact that he must tell all that he 
had ever seen him do or heard him say. So the wit- 
ness commenced his wonderful and startling evidence 
by saying: 

"After the victim had returned from his duties as 
Enrolling Clerk of the Senate he took his meals at the 
Hotel and nothing unusual was noticed about him 
until a day or two before he was arrested ; and at that 
time he commenced to talk about the conspiracy, 
naming them, and to tell how they had attempted to 
murder him both with poison and with bullets. ' ' And 
his story looked so improbable that he could not believe 
it, neither did he believe that the victim was crazy; 
that the victim distinctly stated that he was not afraid 
of these fellows now, but was last summer before he 
had firearms. 

And during Mr. Torrence' s narration of crazy facts, 
he stated that after the victim had informed him about 
this conspiracy, he went out of the hotel while the north 
winds were blowing very hard and the door was shut 
with a bang as though some one had fired off a pistol. 

At this point the court interrupted and said to Mr. 
Torrence: "So you think he is crazy, do you?" 
"Why, certainly he is." 

Court — That will do ; stand aside. 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 153 

Defendant — May it please the Court I desire to ask 
the witness a few questions. 

Court — All right; you may, but they must be very 
short. 

Defendant — Mr. ^Torrence, one of the reasons you 
think I am crazy is because the north wind was blow- 
ing when I went out of your hotel and the door 
slammed? 

Witness — Yes ; but you were also singing as you went 
out. 

Defendant — Don't you know, that one of these north 
winds we have usually blows for about three days, and 
it has a peculiar effect on all animal creation, both 
human and brute? 

Court — You need not answer that question ; it will 
not prove either sanity or insanity. 

Defendant — Your Honor, it is a fact well known by 
natural philosophers, scientific and learned men of this 
coast, as well as to many others, that after one of these 
north winds have been blowing for some time, they 
produce a peculiar effect on all animal creation; and 
then the horses will neigh, the bulls will bellow, the 
cows will low, the calves will bawl, and all animal 
creation is affected to a greater or less extent 

And I now propose to prove by this witness, that he 
understands all about these winds and its effect, and 
that it affected him at such time the same as it did the 
calves, and that he has not got over it yet. Besides it 
may appear that this door slammed not because I was 
crazy, but because the wind blew the witness' s brains 
out. 

Court — Never mind the crazy man, Mr. Torrence, 
stand aside. 

The Court next brought forward this limping, lying 



154 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

lawyer Baker, to whom we have already referred. And 
as soon as he took the stand, the victim turned his back 
to him, so as to show all the contempt that he could, 
because he knew him to be a Masonic fraud and lying 
perjurer. The witness was directed by the Court to 
proceed in his own way and tell anything he could that 
caused him to think that the defendant was crazy. The 
witness proceeded but seemed to be spellbound and half 
lockjawed. He could scarcely say anything other than 
he thought the defendant was crazy, and so the witness 
was soon dimisssed by the court and entirely ignored by 
the defendant. 

The next witness called to elucidate the crazy actions 
of the defendant was the conspirator, Dr. Strong, who 
being instructed how to testify in about the same 
manner that the preceding witnesses had been told, 
proceeded to show the victim was as crazy as a bed bug 
and ought to be put' into an asylum at once. And the 
great reason assigned for the victim's being crazy was 
because he had imagined he was poisoned on the . pre- 
ceeding 14th day of July. Now after this witness had 
emptied his bag of perjury on the judge's altar of 
infamy, he was accordingly directed to leave the stand. 
But at this stage of the tragedy, the victim claimed the 
right to ask the modern Ananias some questions and 
proceeded as follows : 

Defendant — Doctor, do you recollect being in Ball's 
law office about a year ago extolling his qualities and 
there in my presence said, that you would take the 
chances and do anything that he wanted you to do? 

Court — You need not answer that. 

Defendant — At the time I referred to, do you recollect 
that you said you would poison a man for twenty five 
dollars if you had Ball to back you? 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 155 

Court — Don't answer that question. 

Defendant — Just one more : Did you on the 14th of 
last July go into Zimmerman' s drug store, where Tommy 
Gibson works, and there prepare a dose of poison and 
give it to him to be taken to the dental office of Dr. 
Dick, with the intention of having the same administered 
to me? 

Court — You shall not ask the witness any more 
questions. . Doctor, leave the stand. 

A snake-eyed fraud and recent arrival from Oregon, 
who wanted an opportunity to sycophant the favor of 
the mighty conspiracy, now took the stand to elucidate 
what he knew about the crazy actions of the defendant 
and he testified : That on the 14th of last July he met 
the defendant, who said: he had just been poisoned, 
and got it out of the dipper, as his pipe and the dipper 
were the only things that had touched his mouth. The 
defendant looked pale and excited and said, that after 
he had taken the poison, sparks flew out of his eyes 
like the rays from an electric light and that he com- 
menced to burn and have pains in his breast and 
stomach. That defendant could not have taken poison 
or he would have gone into convulsions, and were it not 
for these delusions, or others equally as strong, he 
would not say the defendant was insane; but as it was 
there as no doubt of his being crazy. 

The little doctor had now retailed his coaching, and 
full stock of medical learning, and the Court as usual 
ordered him from the stand. But the defendant insisted 
so persistentlv on his right to cross examine his accuser, 
that the judge under force of a few by-standers who had 
recently come into court and were listening to the farce, 
gave way and allowed the defendant to proceed. 

Defendant —Doctor, if I had really been poisoned as 



156 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

I claimed, would I not have looked pale as you said I 
did? 

Witness — Oh, yes; and more, you would have been 
in convulsions. 

Defendant — But could not a person have been given 
such a small quantity of poison that convulsions would 
not be produced, and that the same appearance as I 
presented would be produced? 

Witness — Well, — its possible that might be. 

Defendant — You are sure I was crazy? 

Witness — Yes; sure. 

Defendant — And you are sure I am crazy now? 

Witness — How could a man have imagined he had 
been poisoned and be sane? 

Defendant — Well, then, if I imagined something, that 
was true, which you say was false, I would be crazy for- 
ever, unless I gave up my belief and said my imagi- 
nations were untrue? 

Witness — Well, I guess you are crazy sure enough. 

Defendant — Well, if I am, how is it that while in that 
crazy condition, I was elected to the most critical posi- 
tion in the State Legislature, and no person there ever 
even thought of my being crazy, and no other person 
ever thought of such a thing except those who desired 
to destroy me to save themselves? 

Court — Doctor, don't answer, but at once leave the 
stand. 

There were two or three other witnesses sworn, but 
their evidence was of less importance either way than 
any given. So the court declared the case closed, and 
would not allow the defendant to introduce any evidence 
in his behalf. But of course the victim did not care 
for that because it made no difference, his doom was 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 157 

sealed regardless of evidence, right or wrong, so far as 
this proceeding was concerned. 

This doctor, A. J. Clark, one of the lunacy com- 
missioners, was a graduate disgracing Harvard College. 
He was about the size of a half grown ape, with a tea- 
cup sized head shaped like a gourd. About all that 
need be said of the other tool is he was a friend of Dr. 
Strong, and a Missouri bull- whacker. They without 
the least consultation commenced to rill out the printed 
blank prepared for such purpose, and which under the 
law and their oaths should contain a detailed statement 
of the facts and conclusions supported by the evidence 
given on the examination. So as the evidence is sub- 
stantially all given here, we will give the principal con- 
clusions of the commissioners in narrative form, so there 
may be seen how much evidence there was, or rather 
was not, to support their conclusions. 

"The defendant has delirous imaginings that persons 
are plotting to kill him, and has had an indefinite, 
homocidal intent ever since July 14, 1886. He has 
no rational intervals and carries a pistol with intent to 
use it. He is of intemperate habits and is dangerously 
insane and has been ever since July 14, 1886." Perhaps 
the reader will pardon us for stating there was not a 
particle of evidence upon which any of the findings of 
the commissioners could be based, so we will have to 
conclude they were based upon their own baseness. 

While the doctors were filling out this certificate, the 
victim went to the judge and asked him when he would 
render his decision upon the examination. This was 
done as a kind of precautionary measure in this way : 
he was not entitled to a jury trial until the judge con- 
firmed the findings of the commissioners and had been 
declared insane. And while he was satisfied that the 



158 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

judge did not know anything about this provision of 
law, yet he was afraid the judge might make out a 
commitment, and he would be hustled away to the asylum 
without getting an opportunity to have a jury trial 
demanded for him. So he wanted to find out when the 
judge would decide the matter, and was informed by 
him, he would take it under advisement and when he 
had decided, he would let him know, as he saw him 
every day at the court house. 

So two days after this time the Judge not having said 
anything about his decision, the victim asked him 
what he had done with the matter; "Why," said the 
Judge, "I gave the sheriff your commitment right away 
after the doctors made out their certificate that you were 
insane, and the sheriff ought to have taken you to the 
asylum yesterday morning." "Yes," said the victim, 
"but you agreed to let me know when you determined 
the matter. " "Well," said the judge, "I do not pro- 
pose to tell an insane man what I am going to do." 

The victim said, "See here, Judge Garroute, you'll 
be sorry for this before you die. You will find out 
yet that you, and they, are the crazy persons instead of 
myself. I will yet make you the sickest dog that 
ever ate a blade of grass when he wanted a vomit." 

The victim was now entitled to a jury trial, but in 
order to obtain it, some friend must make a formal 
motion in open court demanding the same. So the 
next morning he saw ex- Judge Bush and called his 
attention to the provisions of law that gave him the 
right to a jury trial, and asked the ex-judge to apply to 
the court for it. The judge kindly consented to do so, 
and when the court convened that next morning he 
made the proper motion, and called the attention of 
the Court to the law that allowed the same. 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 159 

The Court and a few sympathizers, who were present, 
were figuratively paralyzed; they began to rea'ize the 
plot of ruin was not yet worked out, and so the Court 
recovering itself stated, it would take the matter under 
advisement and at the expiration of two days its decision 
granting a jury trial was announced, but the trial was 
set for November 11th, nearly a month in the future. 

It was now supposed that the victim would not be 
troubled anymore by the combine until his jury trial, 
but not so. The conspiracy were determined by some 
hook or crook to get him incarcerated so that they 
might be able to say, if he exposed them, that he was 
crazy and they had sent him to an asylum ; but that he 
had gotten better and in some way was released. So to 
carry out their desire, they had Judge Garoutte to 
further debauch himself by ordering the sheriff to take 
the victim to the asylum, and there have him confined 
until his jury trial came off. But the judge was too 
cowardly to put such an illegal order in writing and 
only gave it verbally to the sheriff, who was only too 
glad to act on it and told the victim to get ready to go 
to the asylum the next morning. 

At this point Attorney John W. Goin came into the 
sheriff's office 4 and the matter was submitted to him 
for an opinion. He at once declared that the order 
granting a jury trial stayed and superseded all previous 
proceedings in the matter, and the victim could now 
only be confined in an asylum upon the verdict of the 
jury. That he could not be legally placed there, even 
temporarily, while waiting trial. As Mr. Goin was one 
of Harlan's attorneys and a good lawyer, his opinion 
staggered the sheriff in his rampant anxiety and he 
said, "Well, I'll see the judge again." 

Now for the purpose of fortifying himself against a 



160 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

probable attack of the enemy from this last threatened 
position, the victim procured from the Clerk's office a 
certified copy of the order granting him a jury trial and 
the necessary blanks to be used in a Habeas Corpus case. 
And then went over to Judge Bush' s office and informed 
him of the conspiracy's new plan of operation. 

Judge Bush said, "Let them take you, and I will go 
down with you and get out a Writ of Habeas Corpus 
before Judge Wallace, and we will come back on the 
same train with them ; but I do not think they will be 
fools enough to do this, however I will go and see the 
sheriff and I believe he will listen to me. So Judge 
Bush saw the sheriff, and after sufficient time had 
elapsed for him to have an interview with the combine, 
the victim was informed the matter of taking him to an 
asylum had been indefinitely postponed. 

"The gods help those who help themselves," was 
now his guiding star to a great extent, and he set to 
work telling the people whom he got a chance to talk to, 
the real inside facts of his insanity persecution, and of 
course the more persons who heard these facts the more 
good would be done himself when the exposure and 
reaction came on the combine. And working on this 
same general line he conceived the idea that possibly 
he could use the millefluous Bird's paper, the "Wood- 
land Mail," published every morning. So there was a 
young man, Wood DeLong, who was night editor of this 
paper, and he being entirely innocent of all guilty know- 
ledge, the victim invited him over to the sheriffs' office 
one evening, and there it was a very easy matter to get 
him to print in this paper that night the following 
article which the victim had already prepared : 

"Editor of the "Mail,"— Allow me to say, That I am 
perfectly, happy and have no more fear of going to an 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 161 

asylum, as an inmate, than I would if I were the most 
sane and intelligent man in Yolo County, or the 
wealthiest. My persecutors have got just what they 
don' t want ; to wit : they have forced me into court and 
to defend myself, and by doing so, have made the 
State a party against me, which gives me the right of 
trial by jury, and the process of the court to procure my 
witnesses, which are legion. And by my witnesses, I 
shall prove, not only my sanity, but one of the deepest 
laid plots to secretly take a human being's life ever 
planned in a civilized community ; and that the same 
was frustrated by me alone. That now I have no fears 
for the reason so many persons know of the attempted 
murder; besides I have given evidence to so many 
showing this insanity dodge attempted to be played 
against me, was in order to shut my mouth against 
the plots to murder and ruin me. 
Dated October 20, 1886. 

P. M. Sullivan." 

The above statement appearing in the "Woodland 
Mail" next morning was a bitter dose for the combine, 
for it would be read by the people of Woodland and 
Yolo County generally; and of course would cause them 
to talk and investigate the cause of all this insanity 
noise, and that was just what the criminals did not 
want, secrecy was their plan of operation. So now as it 
was becoming public what could they do? They dare 
not answer back in print, for the more it was stirred the 
worse it would make it for them. So they had to take 
their medicine in silence the same as the victim had 
been doing for the last five months. And by reason of 
this article the people had a very good and clear idea of 
the true inwardness of this whole matter before his jury 
trial came off. 

It was now October 28, 1886., and the time for his 
trial was fast approaching and he must be ready with 



162 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

his witnesses, so to that end he prepared the necessary 
papers for an order for his witnesses that resided in 
another County, and presented the same to the judge 
who read it over and inquired what he wanted to prove 
by the witnesses named in the papers. 

He told the judge he wanted to prove and could 
prove these conspirators had tried to murder him, and 
that would show why they were now trying to send him 
to an asylum. 

The judge said, "You shall not prove any such thing, 
and I shall not make any order for witnesses nor let 
you have any in this case." 

The victim replied, the State was a party against him 
and he had a legal right to witnesses and to such order, 
and then went away to the sheriff's office. 

The judge followed him in there and verbally ordered 
the sheriff to either lock him up or take him to the 
asylum. The victim replied, that neither one should 
be done. WhereupQn, the judge said, "God damn you, 
if you were not insane, I would smash you." 

The victim was nqw being internally consumed with 
anger, and in the presence of the two deputies said : 
"See here, Mr. Judge, we will play that I am not insane 
for a little while, we'll bar that, and I will grind your 
corrupt carcass finer than powder. You vile wretch 
and infamous tool. I am a better man and a better 
lawyer than you are or ever will be." The judge was 
not quite ready for this truth, or for battle and so he 
slunk away. 

The boldness of the victim in asking the judge for an 
order to subpoena .witnesses to prove his criminal 
attempts to murder, along with the rest of the con- 
spirators, is what made the judge so very angry. He 
saw that they had a harder game to play than was 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 163 

anticipated, and so he tried to bluff the victim off, and 
got called, that's about the size of that deal. 

From this time until the day before his trial, there 
was nothing discovered from his limited facilities that 
was worthy of note, but on the afternoon before the trial 
many of the jurymen from the country came into and 
were around the court house. The victim noticed the 
agents of the conspiracy around among them, engaged 
in apparent confidential conversation, and he was fearful 
that they were trying to pack the jury against him. 

Along toward night Ball came over to the court house 
and was closeted with the judge for along time. So 
upon all in all the victim concluded not to ask many 
questions on the trial about attempted murder, and thus 
make it so serious a matter for the combine, for perhaps 
if it got too hot for them, they might have some friend 
on the jury that would protect them; or they might 
buy some of the jurymen and it might be all the worse 
for the victim ; that is, they might not all agree on his 
sanity under such circumstances. 

And so he concluded to show up only the woman 
motive for the insanity persecution, and the general and 
specific reputations of the combine being so well known 
to be bad in this regard, all he would have to do would 
be to mention a few names and it would be all over 
with them, while if he charged them with attempted 
murder it might result as above intimated. 

It was now November 18, 1886, 10 a. m., and the 
matter of the victim's alleged insanity was called before 
the Superior Court of Yolo County, California, Judge 
Garoutte presiding. Frank Sprague, district attorney, 
appeared for people, and the accused appeared in person 
also by E. R. Bush, attorney. Twelve men were called 
and took their places in the jury box to be examined 



164 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

touching their qualifications to act as jurors. Judge 
Bush then proceeded and examined four of them. 

The victim then proceeded to examine the fifth pro- 
posed juryman ; and upon the first question being asked 
by him of the juror, the judge interposed and said, 
"Mr. Sullivan, the court does not want to hear you ask 
these jurors any questions. I have told you that you 
must appear by attorney. ' ' 

The victim replied, "Yes; but that was off the bench 
and unofficial and of course cannot be taken as the law of 
the case as yet. And as the whole issue for the jury to 
decide is whether I am sane or insane, it seems to me 
that the very best and most direct and conclusive 
evidence that could be furnished them, would be for 
them to see and hear me conduct my own defense. ' ' 

Here Judge Bush interposed and said: "There could 
be no doubt of the right of the accused to appear in his 
own behalf; the right of self-defense is a conceded right 
both in and out of court, and to adopt a contrary rule 
would be in effect saying, that if a man was so poor or 
so friendless that he could not get counsel to defend 
him, when involuntarily appearing in court, he must 
sit mute and go undefended ; that such rule would be 
in plain contravention of the rules of law and practice 
in all the courts of the State, and contrary to the history 
of all jurisprudence from the days of Justinian down to 
the present time. 

And ". The court interrupted by saying, "You 

are here able and willing to defend the accused and 
there is no necessity for two attorneys in this small 
matter, and I see no reason to change my mind in this 
regard." 

Judge Bush continued and said, by analogy the pro- 
visions of the State constitution were applicable here. 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 165 

and he invoked the same in behalf of the defendant. 
The constitution gives the most sneaking thief or 
unmitigated murderer the right to defend himself in 
person, by attorney, or by both. That a ruling that 
would place a man, who was not even accused of com- 
mitting any crime, on a footing in court below an alleged 
thief or murderer, was palpably wrong in justice, 
natural right, legal and constitutional right. And to find 
a verdict here without giving the defendant the right to 
defend himself in person, would in effect be taking his 
liberty without due process of law both under the con- 
stitution of the State and of the United States. And he 
could not understand why the right of the defendant to 
act for himself should be denied him, especially when 
he knew all the facts and circumstances of his defense 
and the whole matter, and his attorney did not. 

The defendant saw an opening and stated : The statute 
of the State presumed him to be of sound mind until 
the verdict of the jury about to be empanelled found to 
the contrary. And up to such time he had as much 
right to practice in this court as the most famed 
attorney. And to illustrate, suppose one of the most 
noted lawyers in the country was coming to the court 
house to defend some important case, and on his way 
here should be arrested upon a complaint made, by 
young Gibson, the drug clerk, would this court hold in 
such a case that the lawyer's right to practice was taken 
from him by the false complaint of Gibson, until his 
sanity was established by a jury of twelve men? Could 
such a trick deprive a man of the legal, natural and 
divine right to self-defense in court?''' 

Court — There is no use in arguing this proposition to 
the court ; no insane nor alleged insane man can defend 
himself in my court Mr. Bush, if you are going to 



166 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

appear for the defendant proceed and empanel the jury. 

The victim from the beginning knew that the judge 
would not let him defend himself, because he knew too 
much about the criminal combine, and would ask too 
many incriminating and ugly questions before the jury ; 
and Ball anticipating such a contingency had fixed that 
the night before with the judge, so the defendant should 
not defend himself. But he had Judge Bush to make 
his legal argument and supplemented it by his own 
remarks, so as to make the court appear as ridiculous 
and infamous as possible to the jury that they might 
the more easily see the jnwardness of the outrage ; also 
so that he would have as full a record against them for 
future use as possible. 

At this point Judge Bush made a formal motion for 
the accused to be allowed to defend himself in person as 
well as by attorney, and after the same was overruled, 
excepted to, and placed on record, the jury was speedily 
empanelled and the farce proceeded. The evidence of 
the former perversion of justice on October 9th was all 
rehashed, and from study and preparation it was made 
to present a much more respectable appearance than it 
did on its debut. Each actor showed hard study and 
close application to the several parts they were to play, 
so that they got along without being laughed at except, 
the cur whose lies were so palpably false that the jury 
laughed at him from the jury box. 

The only additional witnesses the conspiracy had in 
court were Dr. Clark, Dr. McFarlane, and the district 
attorney. Dr. Clark testified that he acted as com- 
missioner on October 9, and his opinion was then and 
was now that the defendant was insane, and his opinion 
was based on the evidence then given and his observa- 
tion, nothing else. Dr. McFarlane also acted as com- 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 167 

missioner and considered that the defendant was then 
and now afflicted with acute mania. 

The district attorney had sworn to a complaint on the 
6th day of July, 1886, at the request of Ball and Craige, 
charging the defendant with insanity. He did not 
have the defendant arrested then, because Ball and 
Craige did not want him to do so then. The defendant 
had told him about the conspiracy trying to murder 
him last summer. And here the evidence on the part 
of the conspiracy (or people) closed. 

There not being a particle of evidence from which the 
jury could find a verdict of insanity, Judge Bush 
wanted to submit the same without offering any proof 
or making any argument to the jury. But inasmuch 
as some of them had come sixteen miles to see the 
presentation of this elaborate farce, the defendant 
thought it would not be fair to drop the curtain in the 
middle of the play. Besides he desired to go upon the 
stand as a witness and give some of the secret reasons 
for his wanton persecution, and this mockery of justice. 
The sheriff unlawfully refused to subpoena the witnesses 
for the defendant, who lived at Woodland, so he got 
whomever he could around the court house at the time 
of the trial and the substance of their testimony is given 
as follows: 

Reese Clark was an attorney, who had business 
relations as an attorney with the accused which were not 
friendly, and if the victim was crazy there was more 
method in his madness than any insane man he ever 
heard or read about, and he did not think he was crazy, 
but very much the reverse. 

Senator John Lambert was an attorney; he knew the 
accused claimed he was poisoned last July from a 
dipper, but it must have been a very small dose or he 



168 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

would have been as stiff as a Cardiff Giant. The 
accused was certainly a competent lawyer, and if he was 
crazy then he would say all the Woodland lawyers were 
likewise. 

George P. Hurst was an attorney; he knew the 
accused well, and there was nothing to lead him to even 
suspect he was not sound and well balanced. He 
was always gentlemanly and courteous to those who 
treated him that way, and zealous in his duty to his 
clients. 

Hon. H. M. LaRue was a resident of Sacramento City; 
he was speaker of the Assembly of California in 1883- 
84; and he knew the accused for several years, and 
believed him to be the happy possessor of a sound mind 
and good judgment, and that was more than he could 
say of several who were trying to ruin him. And thus, 
the evidence ran for several more witnesses that he 
picked up at the court house at the time. 

After these witnesses were sworn, the victim, at the 
instance of the jury, took the witness stand, and before 
he was through with his two hours' testimony, the 
conspiring gang had nearly all left the court room, 
having seen the last ray of hope of sending him to an 
asylum blasted, by his withering exposure of their sins 
and his persecution. 

He said very little about the many attempts to murder 
him, because he was fearful, as stated, that if he made 
it too plain, that so many great men were in a conspiracy 
to murder him, notwithstanding the jury knew he was 
all right, yet some one or more of them might think it 
would be better to send him to an asylum, than that so 
many persons should suffer under the accusation of such 
great crimes; and there must be a unanimous verdict of 
the jury one way or the other. 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 169 

And so it was, Ball & Craige's names being the 
synonyms of infamy and licentiousness, the die was 
soon cast in the minds of the jury. There was no 
formal argument made to the jury ; the district attorney 
having slunk out of the court room and abandoned the 
case, the jury as soon as they could write their verdict 
found, ''The accused to be of sound mind and excellent 
judgment." And Jezebel soon skipped the country 
and has not been seen nor heard from since by the 
victim. 

Stephens' Bank of Woodland together with all of its 
satelites and murder auxiliaries had now been out- 
generalled and whipped in its own balwick and perjured 
court. And while the people knew this, and the general 
cause for this whipping, yet they dare not take sides 
with the victim for fear that this great money power 
would ruin them in their business affairs, but he made 
the effect on these criminals as damaging as possible by 
now, coming out boldly and telling everybody he talked 
with about the many plans and schemes they had 
practiced to murder him. 

During the time the victim was incarcerated as an 
insane man, he became acquainted with two young 
men, Stork, and Fahnley, whom this combine had 
falsely imprisoned on a charge of grand larceny. So he 
promised these young men that as soon as he gained his 
civil rights by a jury trial, he would see they had 
their freedom in a short time. 

And in a few days he got their case on trial before a 
jury and soon snapped the perjured band that held 
them fast and set the persecuted free by the verdict of 
this jury. Aside from a generous feeling he had for 
these young men, and a desire to save them from 
State's Prison, he desired to get another good chance to 



170 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

thrash the perjured judge and district attorney in their 
own court. And again show the people what frauds 
they were by trying to send a man to the asylum, who 
could and did beat them every time in their own court 
before a jury. We would have you see the combine 
didn't have money enough to bribe every jury, besides 
they were too selfish to use it if they did have it. 

From first to last there were known by the victim to 
be one hundred and twenty of both sex in this con- 
spiracy and twenty- two of them were lawyers and the 
victim knew of evidence sufficient to disbar eleven of 
them for gross immorality and felony. So he made a 
verified petition, presented and filed the same with the 
Supreme Court of the State, asking that the petition be 
heard and the licenses of these lawyers therein named 
be cancelled and revoked. 

The names of some of them were: Judge C. H. 
Garoutte, now judge of the Supreme Court of California, 
Frank Sprague, district attorney of Yolo County, John 
W. Armstrong, Judge of the Superior Court of Sacra- 
mento County, ex-Attorney General A. L. Hart of 
Sacramento County, F. E. Baker, Joe Craige, and J. C. 
Ball of Woodland, Yolo County. Of course the court 
ignored and suppressed this petition and the operation 
of the law in this disbarment matter; and it is only 
fair to assume it did so to keep secret as much as possi- 
ble the crimes of this great conspiracy, because it, and 
its friends were rich, and might be useful to some of 
these judges of this court in the future ; as one good turn 
deserves another of like character. Judge Garoutte 
being now a member of this court, we wonder if he 
hadn't better take up this petition and disbar himself? 

The victim knowing the governor of the State, was 
provided with and then had a fund to use, as he chose, 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 171 

in ferreting out and punishing criminals made a verified 
statement showing some of the principal crimes of this 
conspiracy, giving details and names of persons, and 
presented the same to the governor and asked his help 
and co-operation in punishing these criminals. But nay 
Governor Waterman would do nothing toward causing 
the punishment of these felons. It is evident the 
governors, judges and other officers of the law in Cali- 
fornia, will not punish the rich criminals for their crimes 
against the poor and against the law, as shown in this 
special case which is a fair sample to judge from. 

Soon after the last tragedical days at Woodland, the 
victim located at San Francisco and worked in the law 
office of James H. Smith in the Phelan Building. And 
from the papers we notice this same James H. Smith 
was a brigadier general in the Phillipine war. The 
victim there soon obtained money enough to return to 
his native state, and on May 24, 1888, he visited 
Washington and obtained an audience with Don M. 
Dickinson, the postmaster-general of the United States, 
who graciously received him as a late arrival from the 
Golden State of California. 

The victim proceeded to business at once and pre- 
sented him with the direct verbal, written and docu- 
mentary evidence showing the depredations of the 
United States mail, during these tragedical days of 1886. 
The General seemed disappointed in not receiving some 
good political news instead of this troublesome matter. 
So when the murder facts were being pointed out, 
showing the millionaire conspiracy of John D. Stephens 
and others, the General without word or ceremony 
quickly arose from his mahogany chair and retired into 
a next room and in about five minutes he returned and 



172 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

said, that Chief West would hear and dispose of the 
matter. 

Chief West proposed the victim should surrender the 
documentary evidence he had showing the guilt of the 
Woodland postmaster in deprecating the mails and that 
the same should be sent to Inspector Kirkwood at San 
Francisco for his report upon the same. 

The victim had presented the evidence to Mr. Kirk- 
wood at San Francisco, who had refused to act, he 
standing in with that political faction, and the victim 
well knowing that this proposal of Chief West only 
meant a practical evasion of efficient action, and indirect 
killing and burying of these crimes against the United 
States law, declined to accede to such proposal, but 
insisted on a hearing there at Washington where the 
highest officials and the documentary evidence which 
would prove these mail depredations were. 

But it was all to no use ; the chief wanted the evi- 
dence to send back to the Pacific Coast three thousand 
miles away from whence it would never return, and so 
the victim left these high officials, with disgust at their 
mockery of duty and justice; and was almost convinced 
there is nothing in politics but corruption from con- 
stable to president, both inclusive. 

While marshalling and concluding upon the facts, it 
should be considered that the highest functions of our 
government are to protect the life, liberty, and propert} 7 
of the citizens; which functions are operated through 
its chosen officers. And that in this case, such officers of 
county, state, and United States, instead of protecting 
human life and liberty tried in every way devisable to, 
both imprison and murder such citizen, even to the 
extent of depredating the mails in carrying out their 
plots. 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 173 

It is to be greatly regretted that so many high crimes 
have been proven against so many executive, legislative, 
and judicial officers in the great state of California, and 
in our greatest and best of all nations. Yet it must 
not be concluded that the mechanics, miners, fruit 
growers, and tradesmen, who constitute a majority of 
Califronia' s population, are to be included in the general 
round up of criminals, for you will see these crooks are 
found among the lawyers, judges, bankers, and million- 
aires, and most of all, among the politicians. 

Now after all these sins and crimes have been com- 
mitted and quite generally known in California, there 
was not a man or a newspaper in the State that dare 
raise his voice or print a word in denouncing the same 
or vindicating the law. The disease and greed for 
money being so thoroughly rooted, they would shut 
their eyes and doors of reason against all such acts for 
fear of being boycotted or otherwise injured by this 
motley conspiracy. 

The world's criminal jurisprudence nor the history of. 
the world will not show a case parallel to this, where 
so many powerful men conspired to murder a poor, 
obscure person to hide their own sins, and chased him 
like a mad dog or wild beast all over the State. Pro- 
stituting men, women, and the laws of the state, and 
nation in their hunt to kill him. The bloodiest robber 
for money that ever lived was a gentleman when alive 
and a saint when dead as compared to the individuals 
of this combine. 

This conspiracy had the brain power of scores of 
experienced criminals, many of them the leading 
criminal lawyers of the State. Besides they stood near 
the top round of the social and political ladder, with 
millions of dollars to give them stability and standing, 



174 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

and if possible to lift them to higher prominence and 
great pre-eminence. Thus situated they were the warp 
and woof of the social and political society, the makers 
of the rules and laws thereof. They were under every 
private and public consideration to support and vindi- 
cate the law and not to barbarously debauch every moral 
principle and rule of law as here shown. 

Compare the brain power in the conspiracy of the 
Chicago Anarchists ; the thugs there who murdered Dr. 
Cronin in secret; the deluded workmen of the Molly 
McGuire's, or the erratic actor Booth, who was the 
brain power of that conspiracy and then it can be truly 
said, the criminal brain power of the conspirator, J. C. 
Ball of Woodland, was greater and of more worth as a 
criminal than all just mentioned put together. And no 
criminal combine can be now thought of that would 
equal these Californians except the Tweed Ring, which 
was only a combine for money and not to take human 
life. 

It is possible for one who only reads these facts, to 
comprehend the torture of mind and personal danger 
the victim was in on July 18, 1886, when surrounded 
by these six bloody assassins seeking his life like so 
many hungry tigers in a jungle, or to understand his 
mingled feelings of horror, hope and despair on the 
morning of July 20th as he rode on the express wagon 
and looking back at the window saw the siren deceitfully 
smiling in triumph as he passed down the street into 
the midst of an army of hired assassins lying in wait to 
kill him. And he so perfectly boycotted that he could 
not obtain a pistol for his protection, and with an 
affidavit and order with the conspiring sheriff to arrest 
him on the first signs he made toward exposing the 
murderers. 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 175 

We say, is it possible for the people to imagine them- 
selves in his stead during these agonizing and tragical 
days. If the people could see and understand the true 
situation, these criminals would find themselves engulfed 
in such a whirlpool of retribution that they would cry 
out for the rocks and mountains to fall upon them and 
hide them from an outraged humanity. 

The conspiracy that assassinated the late William 
Goebel of Kentucky was composed of politicians the 
same as the California combine. But there the unfor- 
tunate deceased had money, friends and half the political 
power of the State to back him, while here the victim's 
friends had all become secret assassins and boycotted 
him until he was without a friend, a dollar, a gun, or 
any means to protect his life; and handicapped with 
insanity papers in the hands of a conspiring sheriff to 
arrest him if he made any attempt to expose the 
attempts to murder him. Won't the exposure of these 
villains serve as a deterrent to like political highbinders. 

The foregoing statement of facts and argument will 
now be closed, trusting the reader will distinguish 
between the facts and arguments, yet considering the 
same as a whole. And hoping some good may come 
from the much evil here exposed, and that the vicious 
persons who read these pages may take warning from 
the exposure of these great and life long criminals. 



176 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 



EPITOME 

N the beautiful City of Woodland in the far-famed golden 
-)D state, 

A siren conspired with a murderous clan another to ex- 
tirpate ; 
Strong and mighty were her band a hundred and more, 
The very greatest in the land with millions by the score. 

Their money gave them prominenee within the public mind, 
And rendered any crime they'd do more difficult to find; 
Besides they owned the officers and controlled behind the scenes; 
Having previously elected them for carrying out foul schemes. 

Self-conscious of their might and the power they could use, 

There was nothing here below they did not dare abuse ; 

They had no care for honesty nor the power that made the 

earth, 
And all foul crime that ere was done was naught to them but 

mirth. 

So at midnight's dark and woeful hours they conspired his life 

away, 
Conceived their plots and laid their plans in secret him to slay ; 
And to do such crime in safety and beyond suspicion's eye, 
They must hire bloody assassins, then plead an alibi. 

Such alibi would be a defense and silence forever more 

All accusations of their guilt presented at their door; 

And the papers all would sycophant and prove them far away 

From the atmosphere of such foul crime upon that fateful day. 

They were a selfish, lustful lot, the worst in all the land. 
They raised their murder money from one outside the band ; 
And this they did by written lies both so shameless and so bold, 
That one, already a murderer, gave them Ten Thousand dol- 
lars in gold. 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 177 

Just previous to the assassin's attempts this dauntless siren 

appears, 
And places poison for him to drink then sheds her crocodile 

tears ; 
There she awaits to see him go and drink the fatal cup, 
To see him writhe beneath its power at last to give life up. 

But no not so for God was there and stayed such awful crime, 
He snatched the victim from their clutch and saves him to this 

time; 
And from these astounding circumstances this wicked band 

should know, 
That he who notes the sparrow's fall notes all foul crime below. 

The spirit that ruled their hardened hearts now ruled to ruin 

sure, 
To spill the blood of one they'd wronged and made so very 

poor; 
So they now brought forth an assassin fierce hired with stolen 

pelf, 
Who sought to murder the victim asleep, then say he'd killed 

himself. 

The siren placed this assassin fierce into an adjoining room, 
Who, when the victim was asleep should come and seal his 

doom ; 
She in the meantime going out some laces for to buy, 
Would soon return and find him dead then prove her alibi. 

But sleep from his weary soul had fled, he could only lay and 

rest, 
And think of the moral traitors he'd found in the far-famed 

golden West ; 
No w after a while, he heard a noise and quickly went to the 

door, 
And saw this assassin passing away enraged for want of gore. 

The next day on Woodland's streets, the assassins were on the 
alert, 

Some were white and some were black, but all were pro- 
nounced expert ; 



178 A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. 

Then they had him surrounded and the attack was deftly made, 
But the power that broke their poison plot saved him from 
the assassin's blade. 

Thus far their plots were fruitless, they could not take his life, 
Th^y could not gain their bloody prize in such unholy strife ; 
Yet demon possessed and undismayed they were still deter- 
mined to kill, 
The object of their wicked wrath his blood to surely spill. 

Our victim was then Enrolling Clerk of the senate of the state, 
He must go and perform its duties and let other matters wait; 
So again they plotted to kill him while going on his way, 
Upon the cars at Davisville, and on that woeful day. 

The train was leaving the depot, the assassins were at their 

posts, 
Money bags with cash to pay them was looking like a ghost ; 
The team was ready to run them off as soon as the blow was 

struck, 
But watchfully he evaded their plots, which they foolishly 

called his luck. 

The train now soon arrived at the capitol of the state, 

There being so many assassins, he was yet not sure of his fate; 

And in the anguish of such suspense, he lived for many long 

days, 
While thirty assassins attempted his life in scores of secret 

ways. 

With poison, knife and bullet, at all hours of both night and 

day, 
They watched for a chance to kill him in some sure, but secret 

way; 
His food was poisoned, his rooms were tried, he was hunted 

like a hare, 
With all conceivable criminal plots they tried him to ensnare. 

They conspired and bribed the senators, who tried to help 
them kill, 



A CALIFORNIA CONSPIRACY. i?9 

Their own elected Enrolling Clerk who such office then did fill ; 
But all their murder plans with sure defeat was fraught, 
And will now serve to expose them as in good morals they 
ought. 

By death they could not destroy him so they tried the insanity 
plan, 

And brought forth their Court and doctors, who declared him 
a crazy man ; 

But the bulwark of our freedom, a jury of twelve honest men, 

Reversed their Court and doctors and showed forth their per- 
jured sin. 

The details of these awful facts are now put forth by press 
With pictures of persons and places set out in proper dress ; 
And after their publication, the world will truly know, 
The wickedest men on earth are at California, County Yolo. 

And they will learn as time rolls b\ r there is a power that rules ; 
That their might did not make right, but made them mortal 

fools ; 
But God is good and will forgive, all sins so ever great, 
If they but come and seek his grace, before it is too late. 



NEW YORK EPISODES. 




Y reason of a series of evoluting circumstances 
the victim now found himself a practicing 
lawyer at Prattsburgh, N. Y., in 1889. And 
according to his usual luck in a short space of 
time he ran foul of a vile mouthed human 
caliope, and during the melee he accused the caliope of 
being guilty and causing the death of little Kippie. 

Kippie was a colored youth who had recently been 
found dead in the hotel barn, under circumstances that 
the people thought pointed to foul play. His body 
being braised, and he having been in the hotel late at 
night a short time before in company with the caliope. 
This accusation was taken up as a declaration of war 
between all the drunken habitues of the hotel and the 
victim. 

So it was but a short time until a little two for five 
attorney, through the instance of the caliope' s conspiracy 
of drunkards, caused the arrest of the victim upon the 
fictitious charge, that he commenced law suits without 
good grounds. 

While the fact was the little attorney had not been 
able to win a law suit against the victim up to that time. 
Of course the accused was taken before one of their own 
kind, a drunken justice of the peace, and there he gave 
Wilbur Dearlove as bondsman to answer any indictment 
that might be found against him. 



NEW YORK EPISODES. 181 

At the next session of the Grand Jury, the loafers 
from the hotel all went to court, loaded to the muzzle to 
swear away the liberty of the victim. But the Grand 
Jury soon saw through the outrage and ignored the bill, 
with a reprimand against the drunkards for producing 
such a groundless charge. 

And thus ended this little episode, which is only 
worth mentioning to show, the general good luck of the 
victim in attracting the persecution of the criminal and 
debauched classes wherever he resides. 

It also shows some of the under currents in the sea of 
life, that are ever wont to shipwreck the mariner with- 
out attracting the special notice of those who sail on 
without a breaker to contend with. If it should be 
asked, why the individual names of some of these con- 
spirators are not given the same as in the California 
combine, the answer is, their general and individual 
inferiority would not justify the expenditure. 



182 NEW YORK EPISODES. 



N the spring of 1893 our victim located at North 
Tonawanda, N. Y., and has practiced law there 
ever since. And his worldly affairs went on in a 
commonplace manner until the winter of 1897, at 
which time a charter incorporating the municipality 
into a city government was compiled by him, assisted 
by four other attorneys and a recent acquisition to the 
Republican party by the name of McCoy. This was a 
year when the political plum trees was full of promise 
and augered a prolific crop, for these incorporators. 

The German American Bank, through a siege of 
Cleveland's inoccuous dessitude, was about to yield its 
solvent existence and fall into the arms of one of these 
incorporators as receiver. This to be receiver, was 
recently from Nebraska and once sat there in a State 
Senator' s chair ; but was now suffering from a depletion 
of pap caused by the unwarranted ravages of the political 
grasshopper. Two others of the incorporators were to 
receive, from the great tree of political promise, the 
attorneyship for the new made city. The new acquisi- 
tion was to be postmaster, and the victim its city judge. 
But, alas, for these great plans of these great men. 
The great tree was shaken by the adverse winds of high 
hope and great planning. And the rich succulent fruit 
fell not as planned, but into the laps and baskets of 
those, who toiled not neither did they spin. 

The Solon from Nebraska was now bereft of the rich 
emoluments of a bank receivership and his grief was 
truly sorrowful to behold. But yet undaunted and 



NEW YORK EPISODES. 183 

undismayed he girded himself, and chaperoned by- 
Assemblyman Warner, heels overhead he dove into the 
political fruit basket, in quest of this city attorneyship 
which he and his partner had so solemnly vouchsafed to 
others. And so in mete and proper time he emerged 
therefrom, like the prodigal, lone and empty handed. 
The political plum chance was now fast growing pain- 
fully less and financially excruciating. Something must 
be quickly and effectively done or all hope for gathering 
fruit from this season's crop would be lost and perhaps 
forever gone. 

And as the judgship of the new city was the only fruit 
left, on which they could hope to satisfy their gna wings, 
they attempted to land the same in their basket. It 
seemed an easy matter, for Assemblyman Warner, one 
of these attorneys, and incorporators, had the charter in 
charge before the Legislature and he could easily change 
the same by taking the power for appointing the judge 
away from the governor, and giving it to the mayor of 
the new city; who would appoint his law partner, the 
Nebraska Solon, instead of the victim. 

The change was accordingly and quietly made, but 
was soon found out by the victim, who at once com- 
menced to inform different members of their party of 
the base treachery this twain were practicing. And so 
it was when the mayor offered the judgship to the 
Solon, it was so politically hot that he dare not even 
touch it for fear it would burn up all his future hopes 
and political aspirations. Besides the treachery of this 
twain, to the incorporators who had been promised a city 
attorneyship, was still rife and adding fire to these 
political flames. And one who neither toiled nor spun 
received the fruit. 

And so it was that the treachery of this twain of 



184 NEW YORK EPISODES. 

lawyers, Henry E. Warner and James P. Lindsay, 
served as the inocculating virus that blasted their own 
political future, and finally grew and so ripened that 
it caused the criminal persecution and attempt to murder 
the victim at North Tonawanda, N. Y., though these 
two lawyers named had no criminal connection with 
such attempted murder. 

It was during the month of June, 1898, our victim 
drew and filed with the city clerk of the new city a 
chattel mortgage securing the payment of fifty dollars. 
He did so at the special request of both the mortgagor 
and mortgagee. By mistake he wrote "one cart" in 
the mortgage when he should have written "two carts," 
both being worth not to exceed $5.00. 

A few days after this, he was making a copy of the 
mortgage and corrected his error by making it read "two 
carts" instead of "one cart." The innocent and legiti- 
mate change made in this mortgage so as to make it 
conform to the wishes of both parties, was attempted to 
be twisted and tortured into an unlawful mutilation 
of records, which if true would have sent the victim to 
State's Prison and disbarred him. So upon this point 
he took issue with the political cormorants seeking to 
devour him, and the battle thus precipitated by a horde 
of hungry politicians was fought to a successful judicial 
determination in the victim's favor, as you shall see. 

The twain of little lawyers were now in great glee, the 
wonderful discovery had been made, by the ever-sober 
and watchful city clerk, that would surely result in 
finally and forever destroying the power and influence 
of the one who had blocked their game of treachery and 
prevented one of them being city judge. 

Now was their time to make a ten strike for keeps. 
The end of his tether was in sight and his final ruin was 



NEW YORK EPISODES. 185 

only a matter of time. Jack Ryan, the officious Chief 
of Police, was now consulted and of course he advised 
the immediate arrest of the victim, and rendered quite 
useful service to his enemies; and it seemed as though 
there was a rivalry between him and Postmaster McCoy 
as to which could in a half secret way, do the victim's 
reputation the most injury, and thus sycophant the 
favor of his persecutors. 

The city clerk with bated breath and feverish brow 
was aching to be directed by the twain to swear out the 
necessary warrant, and thus get even for a fancied defeat 
in not receiving the appointment for first assistant post- 
master at North Tonawanda. The fastidious Can Can 
dancer, the mayor, together with a few others were 
panting for a chance to take part in the destruction of 
a single individual. 

But here was a broken and insolvent mortgagor; he 
must be seen and kept in line, for if he should swear to 
the truth and say, that he wanted the change made it 
would be all off and the wanted sacrifice could not be 
made. Besides, maybe, he had already talked too 
much and told someone, that he desired to have the 
instrument read as it had been made to read. And the 
fact and proof was, he had told his old time friend, 
James Skens, (whom the victim had sued) that he had 
instructed the victim to make the change in the mortgage. 
But they did not know this for if they had the mortgagor 
could not have gotten the money, which he so much 
wanted and obtained from them. 

The assemblyman and clerk were now buzzarding 
around the poor insolvent and according to evidence he 
was offered a large sum of money if he would swear 
so as to send the victim to State's Prison. This he 
promised to do according to the evidence of his old 



186 



NEW YORK EPISODES. 



friend Skene, and did so swear to the best of his ability, 
but failed as we shall see later on. In the meantime the 
Solon who was now acting as city attorney was learnedly 
and laboriously engaged in preparing the necessary 
papers that was to result in the final destruction of 
the victim. 




DISTRICT ATTORNEY HOPKINS. 

So in due course of fixing matters up the victim was 
arrested and charged with the aforesaid fictitious crime 
and brought before the ignorant Cadi for examination ; 
but rather than submit to such a farce he gave the 
necessary bonds to the Grand Jury. 

District Attorney Hopkins was now a candidate for 
re-election, and the victim's enemies were in the political 
saddle at the new city, and of course the District 
Attorney wanted their votes and assistance in securing 



NEW YORK EPISODES. 187 

his re-election. It was now getting near the time for 
the September term of the Grand Jury, and the victim 
had obtained an affidavit showing the insolvent mort- 
gagor had told his old friend James Skene, that Henry 
E. Warner and crowd had offered him a good sum of 
money to swear so as to send the victim to State's 
Prison. 

The district attorney was presented with such affidavit 
by some of the ablest men in the county. And, in sub- 
stance, advised to drop the farce and not try to disgrace 
the accused for there was nothing in the charge but spite 
and revenge from beginning to end ; and that it would 
end in a fizzle and the persecutors would get hurt worse 
than the persecuted. But he was obdurate and would 
not yield to such proper advice, and presented the case 
to the Grand Jury, who ignored the bill and refused to 
find an indictment. 

Now the District Attorney on finding out the Grand 
Jury had ignored the bill and voted not to indict the 
victim, went in before them and there contrary to his 
duty, and contrary to the proper requirements and 
functions of his office, and as is here contended contrary 
to the law; worked, worried and labored against the 
victim, and finally succeeded in coaxing and inducing 
the Grand Jury to re-consider its vote of ignoring the 
accusation against the victim, and vote in favor of 
indicting him which they did by the bare requisite 
number of twelve men. 

Now the district attorney did this, knowing from this 
affidavit that the principal witness was to receive a big 
sum of money to so swear so as to send the victim to 
prison, and without calling the maker of this affidavit 
before the Grand Jury so that they might hear his testi- 
mony. Anil when the case came on for trial at the 



188 NEW YORK EPISODES. 

following October term of court, the district attorney 
tried various tricks and wiles to prevent a trial at such 
term., and thus keep the indictment hanging over the 
victim, but he was forced to a trial of the indictment, 
he had thus succeeded in getting, and the jury very soon 
acquitted the persecuted victim. 

It came out in the evidence on the trial of this indict- 
ment that the insolvent mortgagor had been offered a 
good sum of money from Mayor J. V. Smeaton, City 
Clerk George Cramer, City Attorney James P. Lindsay, 
and his law partner, Assemblyman Henry E. Warner, 
to swear so as to shove the victim up to send him to 
prison. And this insolvent mortgagor swore directly on 
such incriminating center line, but was contradicted by 
three witnesses. 

Now as a matter of fact at the time the insolvent 
mortgagor was wanted to be used as aforesaid, Mayor 
Smeaton and Clerk Cramer made their promissory note 
for ninety dollars ($90.00) due October 16, 1898, and 
raised the money on it at the State Bank of North 
Tonawanda, N. Y., and it was given to Henry E. 
Warner, and he and the insolvent mortgagor both went 
to Buffalo with it where it was paid to Ira H. Meyer, 
the mortgagee, for the mortgagor's use and benefit, less 
$15.00 which Mr. Warner kept. 

So we have the evidence that shows the insolvent 
mortgagor was to get a good sum of money from Mayor 
Smeaton, City Attorney Lindsay, Clerk Cramer, and 
Henry E. Warner to swear to a lie so as to shove the 
victim up and to send him to prison ; and also the evi- 
dence that the mortgagor swore to such lies according to 
the contradiction of three witnesses. 

And here are also the facts showing that such mort- 
gagor got a good sum of money from them as he said he 



NEW YORK EPISODES. 189 

would, except it is not shown that Mr. Lindsay had any 
direct connection in raising or paying this money. 

It is a fact that when the district attorney obtained 
this indictment he was an aspirant for re-election; that 
when he tried the indictment he was a candidate for 
re-election; that these enemies persecuting the victim 
were practically in control of the city government at 
North Tonawanda, and of the machinery of the Repub- 
lican party there ; that they had many votes and could 
control many more on this election, and the district 
attorney wanted these votes for his election, and that 
they wanted the district attorney to indict and persecute 
the victim : Now, do not all these facts taken together 
show, why this district attorney prosecuted this innocent 
victim as he did? 

And do not such facts show the District Attorney* 
prosecuted this innocent man to please these politicians 
at North Tonawanda, so as to get their votes and 
influence to re-elect him District Attorney? 

What must the people think of the District Attorney 
who would get an indictment against an innocent man 
as here shown? What must the people think of their 
district attorney who prosecuted an innocent man on 
bribed testimony as here shown? Is any innocent man 
safe if such a man is district attorney? How would it 
do for him and District Attorney Sprague of California 
to go into partnership? Don't the acts here stated, and 
the proper inference therefrom, show them to be well 
mated? Isn't the exposure of these fellows for the 
public good and in the interest of good morals and of 
good government? We think so and hence it is done. 

The mayor and his sattelites now had control of the 
political machinery of North Tonawanda and he secured 
his renomination while Mr.' Lindsay secured the nomi- 



190 NEW YORK EPISODES. 

nation for city judge in 1899 just following this perse- 
cution of the victim. The victim then published these 
criminal facts against them openly charging this crime 
of bribery and had a printed copy of such charge placed 
in every house in the city, and of course the result of 
the election was they were all defeated, and the gallant, 
valiant mayor soon migrated to Spider Lake, Wisconsin. 

But before he went and smarting under the detection 
and exposure here stated, this mayor and the city clerk 
came to the Davenport Flats where the victim resided 
in June, 1899, about ten o'clock at night, loaded with 
liquor on the inside and guns on the outside to kill and 
destroy him. They sent a messenger to the flat for to 
have the victim come down. 

He hesitated some little time before he concluded to 
.go because he was satisfied their intention was to do 
him mortal injury, and he did not desire any trouble or 
bloodshed ; but he finally made up his mind they would 
never let him alone until something was done, and he 
might as well close the chapter with them then and 
there in some way as at any other time. So without 
replacing his hat or coat he went to where they were 
with both hands in his pants' pocket. 

They opened the seance by attempting to get him into 
a wrangle of words, but he remained and acted quietly 
on the defense. 

The Clerk foamed around and made some threats and 
demonstrations against him and ran his hand into the 
back pocket of his pants and pulled up a revolver in 
sight a couple of times, but did not take the same 
entirely out of his pocket. The victim was very thank- 
ful the clerk did not get his gun out, for if he bad, per- 
haps this story would not have been written at the pre- 



NEW YORK EPISODES. 191 

sent time, but if it had it would be with different results, 
from that night's seance, than at present. 

It should be added that only the opportune presence 
of Janitor Todman, at the time the clerk assayed to pull 
his gun, who grabbed and slammed him against the side 
of the building saved all hands future trouble. For the 
clerk was just drunk enough to imagine that he was a 
brave man, and to ran a bluff which could not have 
been successfully done at that time and place. For the 
victim had stood about all the persecution that he could 
be expected to stand especially when such drunken 
loafers came after him at such time of night at his own 
house. 

As it was, these maudlins slunk away and no blood 
was shed. Neither did the victim make any public 
talk or demonstration about this little attempt to kill 
him, for he realized there would be no use in so doing 
or hoping for any successful criminal prosecution of 
these fellows on account of the relation and attitude of 
the district attorney with them and they with him. 



192 NEW YORK EPISODES. 



' I y *HE last and most contemptible vicissitude in this 

\ -£ kaleidiscope of persecution is briefly narrated as 

v follows: In January, 1899, a young woman 

; ? name Julia Johnson about seventeen years of 

age and accompanied by her physician came to 

the victim's law office at North Tonawanda, N. Y., and 

there told him a most pitiful and sympathetic story, 

detailing how she had been raped on Christmas night, 

1898, by each of three young men on Grand Island, 

opposite the City of Buffalo, N. Y. She was without 

means to prosecute these fellows and so her case was 

taken on the usual terms of one-half the recovery after 

the costs and expenses of prosecution were paid. 

On the examination of these cases before the magis- 
trate and before the referee the undisputed evidence 
showed : She had previously settled her cases for $45.00; 
also that she had a private disease, and had told one of 
her alleged ravishers so on that Christmas night; also 
that she had been drinking liquor and riding back and 
forth on the Grand Island feny boat that day with one 
of them, who was a deck hand on the boat, and who 
took her riding that evening at her solicitation and 
returned with her at 10 o'clock. 

The evidence of these three young men whom she 
accused flatly contradicted her, two of them had never 
seen her before. And the fathers of these young men 
each swore their boys were at their respective homes 
all that Christmas night, except one of them who had 
her out driving until about 10 o'clock; and there was 



NEW YORK EPISODES. 193 

not a particle of legal, corroborating evidence to sustain 
her. So these young men were discharged by the 
magistrate. 

In the meantime the victim had sued these young 
men on these charges of rape for civil damages, and 
after they were discharged by the magistrate it was 
almost plain that the civil actions could not be success- 
fully prosecuted; so a compromise was effected for 
$250.00 in each case. And while the money yet lay on 
the victim's desk where it was paid to him by the 
opposing attorney, and while stipulations of discontin- 
uance of these actions were being signed, this young 
woman came in the victim's law office and sat down by 
the desk ; and without waiting to finish signing these 
papers, the victim gladly and impulsively then and 
there in the presence of this adverse attorney counted 
out of this same money $350.00 and handed it to Miss 
Johnson, who received the same and said she was satis- 
fied. 

She then left the victim' s office and told the magistrate 
she had settled her civil cases and showed him the 
money, or some of it, she had just received from the 
victim ; and she subsequently told her physician in the 
hearing of another gentleman that she had received 
$350.00 from Mr. Sullivan and $45.00 from the Grand 
Islanders out of her cases : and she never returned to the 
victim's office after this time, but took up her abode at 
Buffalo, N. Y., where she got in with a young lawyer 
who became so much interested in her, that he had her 
alleged rape cases presented to the Grand Jury, which 
refused to indict these young men. This made their 
fathers considerable trouble and caused them to reflect, 
that they were foolish to pay this money, in the first 



194 NEW YORK EPISODES. 

instance, because there was not sufficient evidence upon 
which to base an indictment. 

Now Ossian Bedell is a friend and neighbor of these 
Grand Islanders; he is also one of the General Com- 
mitteemen of the Republican organization of Erie 
County, N. Y. He and ex- Judge Lewis are acquaint- 
ances and friends for years, often standing in the rela- 
tion of client and attorney. Now there is a young 
attorney at Buffalo who read law in the Judge's office, 
and presently this young attorney is imbued with an 
active idea that the victim should pay into court all of 
this $750. 00 that he had received in these cases, which 
of course the victim refused to do for the reasons already 
stated. Whereupon and through the forms of law this 
young attorney had the victim to appear on a motion 
before the recently appointed Judge Kruse, for the 
ostensible purpose of having a Referee appointed to 
take proof and report why he should not be compelled 
to pay all of this $750.00 in court for the use of Miss 
Johnson, she now claiming she never had received any 
of this money. 

On the hearing of this motion the victim presented 
the affidavit of four persons which showed Miss John- 
son had received all the money she was entitled to as 
stated, while her sole affidavit directly contradicted this 
contention. These conflicting affidavits raised an issue 
of fact between an attorney and his client and entitled 
the attorney to a jury trial. . 

The fact of a person being an attorney does not deprive 
him of the right to have a question of fact, of this kind, 
tried by a jury. 

The law and practice in the courts of the country and 
the decisions of the Supreme Court and the Court of 
Appeals of this State establish the: law to be that when 



NEW YORK EPISODES. 195 

a substantial issue of fact is raised on a motion of this 
kind between an attorney and his client, it ought and 
must be tried by a jury, and not in a summary manner 
by the court. And the court on hearing such a motion 
should deny the same leaving the applicant to begin a 
regular action in a court of law if they so desire. 

Notwithstanding these facts and law, Judge Kruse 
granted an order of reference to Henry H. Seymour to 
take proof about this matter and report to the court. 
He also refused to require the plaintiff to give bonds for 
cost. But another Judge of the Supreme Court subse- 
quently granted an order requiring the plaintiff to give 
bonds for costs in the sum of $250.00. And this is the 
same judge the Republican organization of Erie County 
tried to politically throw overboard last year. Why 
Judge Kruse made this order of reference contrary to 
the practice and law we do not say, but leave the reader 
to judge the same after the facts and circumstances are 
stated. 

If an order of reference had not been made and the 
parties had been required to begin an action at law, then 
under the law, the victim could not have been arrested 
herein as he subsequently was. Judge Kruse is pre- 
sumed to know this law; and at the time he granted 
this order of reference, and is yet aspiring for the 
Republican nomination for Justice of the Supreme Court 
at the coming election this fall. 

And at the time such order of reference was made, 
this same, powerful, Republican, General Committee- 
man, Ossian Bedell, was in court with his aforesaid 
attorney, ex- Judge Lewis and neither of them had any 
open, public business there, with the court; though the 
ex- judge was up at the Bench whispering or rather talking 
in a low tone to Judge Kruse, and then back again 



196 NEW YORK EPISODES. 

seated by the side of Mr. Bedell and whispering to him 
and each of them occasionally looking at the victim, 
before this order of reference was granted; and they 
remained in court until the referee was appointed, 
which was a long time after the opening of court that 
morning and the last business done by the court that 
morning, as shown by the record kept by the Special 
Deputy Clerk of Court. All of these facts and circum- 
stances were ominous to the victim, and viewing them 
from his standpoint of experience and persecution, as 
here partially related, meant much to him; though they 
might not mean very much to one whose past life had 
been one of ease and little experience. There can be no 
reasonable doubt of the proper conclusion to be inferred 
from these facts. And we leave the reader to make it. 

The Referee made two separate reports to the Court, 
containing several statements of facts supposed and 
required to be based on the evidence taken before him. 
These statements were nearly all against the victim and 
his interest; and among them were five statements 
which were not based upon the evidence, some of them 
having no evidence whatever to sustain them, the others 
being contrary to the evidence. 

At the time the Referee made his reports to the Court, 
he also presented his findings of fact supposed and 
required to be based on the evidence taken by him. 
There were nine separately numbered paragraphs of these 
facts, nearly all of which were against and prejudicial 
to the interest of the victim. And among the facts 
found by the referee in these paragraphs were four facts 
found against the victim's" interest, and some of these 
had no evidence whatever to sustain them, and the 
others were directly contrary to the evidence. 

So here were nine statements of facts made by the 



NEW YORK EPISODES. 



197 



referee, none of which were sustained in any manner by 
the evidence, and were therefore false. 

These reports were made and presented in such an 
unfair and garbled a manner that they made the victim 




JUDGE CHILOS. 

and his side of the proceeding appear in a much more 
unfavorable manner than the evidence warranted. 
Besides the reports were interlarded with great chunks 



198 NEW YORK EPISODES. 

of self laudation and misstatements of the law, which if 
all taken with the findings at their full face expression 
would unjustly injure the victim. 

When these reports and these findings came before 
Judge Childs for confirmation, the victim was proceed- 
ing as best he could to show they should not be con- 
firmed, because so many of them were false, and he sb 
characterized them. Whereupon the Court interrupted 
him and in substance said: "The Referee is an officer 
of the court and his findings must not be called false, 
but that the victim might say, they were not properly 
sustained by the evidence; and that his course in thus 
attacking the referee would cause the court to sustain 
him if it possibly could. The victim in substance 
replied: That he could not presume the Court would 
sustain any one unless they were right. And after that, 
the discussion of these findings soon closed and the 
court took the papers and said he would read all the 
evidence. 

Of course Judge Childs confirmed these reports and 
these findings of the referee and by order made them 
the findings of the court, thus pronouncing them all 
veritable facts and solid truth. And granted an order 
that the victim should pay into Court more money than 
he received from these actions. 

And the Judge wrote an opinion on confirming these 
reports and findings in which he said, he had carefully 
read the testimony, and then says: "From such testi- 
mony, it appears that Sullivan commenced three several 
actions in behalf of Julia Johnson, by her guardian ad 
litem as above entitled, for the purpose of recovering in 
each of said actions the damages sustained by said 
Johnson by reason of an assault and battery alleged to 



NEW YORK EPISODES. 199 

have been committed upon her by the defendants in said 
action. ' ' 

The actions described in the above quotation from 
Judge Child's opinion were never commenced ; but other 
actions as already stated had been commenced. The 
testimony does not show that actions for "assault and 
battery' ' had been commenced as stated in such opinion. 
The words "assault and battery" were not used in the 
evidence nor in any of the proceedings herein, until 
Judge Childs used them himself. Hence it is an evi- 
dent fact, that the statement in relation to these actions 
for "assault and battery" is false, and Judge Childs 
knew the same before he wrote his opinion. 

This might be considered a small matter to say so 
much about, if it were not written by a judge of the 
Supreme Court, acting in his official capacity, and put 
in his opinion, where he undertakes to impeach the 
honor and take away the property of the individual, 
whose every interest he is bound to lawfully protect in 
his capacity as judge. But under these conditions such 
falsehoods become of the greatest importance and 
affects not only the victim, but the people of the whole 
State. 

In this same opinion, Judge Childs inserted the 
following false statement concerning the victim: "It 
was insisted by Sullivan upon the argument, that the 
claim of the plaintiff Johnson against the defendants in 
these actions was fraudulent and unfounded, which fact 
was known to him at the time he received the moneys 
with which he is sought to be charged on these motions, 
and that the defendant in these actions were guiltless of 
any assault upon said plaintiff, although willing to pay 
the sum received by him for the purpose of preventing 



200 NEW YORK EPISODES. 

any public charge of the nature embraced in said 
actions." 

And then the judge proceeds to argue from this false 
statement and says: "Just how this would relieve Sulli- 
van is not apparent; but it is quite likely that such 
claim on his part did not tend, as it ought not, to 
enhance the value of his testimony in the opinion of the 
referee. ' ' The victim says : Neither is it apparent to 
him how the referee could be affected in relation to the 
value of his testimony, by reason of this false statement 
of the judge, which was not made until after the referee's 
report was made. How could such a physical impossi- 
bility exist as the Judge's opinion here implies. 

The words in the foregoing quotation, which are the 
most vicious and around which all others circle and 
seem to take root and grow, are the words, "fraudulent 
and unfounded." And these words the opposing 
attorney, Mr. Ladd, says the victim did not use. Mr. 
Ladd has made such statement several times to the 
victim and in the presence and hearing of other persons 
So we think here is sufficient evidence to prove the 
victim did not use these words. And if he did not use 
them, he could not have used the others in the quota- 
tion; because they are so dovetailed with the others that 
to take them out, the others could not be used as stated 
in the opinion. Besides the victim says he did not use 
the language attributed to him or anything like it. 

If the victim had insisted on the argument as the 
judge says in this quotation from his opinion, then' the 
victim must be a fool or crazy to have thus plead his 
own infamy. And as he is not charged with being a 
fool and has proved the crazy charge to be false by the 
best of authority, by the safeguard to the people' s lives, * 
liberty, and property; namely, a jury of twelve men; 



NEW YORK EPISODES. 201 

we think it is fair, just and true to conclude he never 
used the language attributed to him. 

But he did say in substance on this argument, that 
after the discharge of the accused persons he was satisfied 
from the evidence taken on their criminal examination, 
that these civil actions could never be successfully pro- 
secuted. And he here says, that is the reason why he 
discontinued them. 

This order made by Judge Childs, confirming the 
referee' s report and ordering the victim to pay into court 
more money than he received, has been appealed to the 
Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, where there 
are five judges who sit in review. This opinion of 
Judge Childs must be printed with the other papers on 
appeal and there it will be read by these judges, who will 
see from this quoted paragraph that Sullivan is a self- 
confessed scoundrel, and the Appellate Court would then 
necessarily affirm Judge Child's order. Read this 
quotation again and you will see that it is much more 
vicious than we here say it is. To be falsely accused 
by a judge on the bench of having confessed and plead 
his own infamy, the way this paragraph puts it, is too 
much for the victim to stand. He will not stand it ; 
he will strike back in self defense if he perish by the 
blow. 

Is it not a God given principle sanctified by the blood 
of our Revolutionary ancestors that all men are created 
equal. On such principle is not the victim's honor as 
sacred to him as that of Judge Childs is to him. Then 
what right had Judge Childs, or how can he be justified 
or excused for inserting an untrue statement in his judi- 
cial opinion, that may forever destroy the victim's 
honor as well as take away his property? 

If it were true, that Sullivan insisted on the argument 



202 NEW YORK EPISODES. 

of this report, that the claims upon which he obtained 
the money were fraudulent and unfounded, why did 
not Judge Childs make an order that this money should 
be paid back to the persons from whom it was obtained? 

Instead of ordering it paid into court, where the 
plaintiff, her attorney, and referee might eventually get 
it? This was a summary proceeding and he acting as 
a court with equitable powers therein had unquestioned 
authority to make any order the justice of the case 
required; and why did he not make such an order? 
The referee in this proceeding is already well- cared for, 
being Deputy Commissioner of Jurors appointed by the 
judges and provided with a good, fat salary. 

A brief summary might be made here as follows : The 
Republican nomination for Supreme Judge in this dis- 
trict at Buffalo is equivalent to an election. Here is 
Judge Kruse, an aspirant for such Republican nomi- 
nation, making an order of reference contrary to the law 
and practice in such cases, with this powerful Republi- 
can General Committeeman of Erie County present, 
namely, Ossian Bedell, also his old time Republican 
friend, ex- Judge Lewis, neither of them having any 
court business there as shown by the record. Yet they 
remain in court a long time and until this order is 
made, with the ex-judge going up to the bench and there 
talking to Judge Kruse in a low tone and then returning 
sitting by, and whispering to Mr. Bedell. 

Henry H. Seymour, who is an appointee of the 
several judges as Deputy Commissioner of Jurors, now 
just happens to be sitting in court, and Judge Kruse 
appoints him Referee; and he makes these nine false 
statements and findings of facts as aforesaid with a 
garbled report, and that his fees are about $100.00 to be 
paid by the victim, all of which are confirmed by the 



NEW YORK EPISODES. 203 

order of Judge Childs as veritable facts and truths, at 
the same time ordering the victim to pay into court 
more money than" he received in the matter, where the 
plaintiff, her attorney, and this referee might eventually 
get it. 

Judge Childs makes a written opinion on this con- 
firmation, and in such opinion he uses six lines of type 
written matter in making a statement of fact which he 
says appears from the evidence, while the truth is, what 
the Judge says appears from the evidence does not 
appear from the evidence or in the evidence. Hence 
such statement in his deliberate written opinion is un- 
true, is false. 

And a little further on in this opinion the Judge uses 
nine lines in making a false statement concerning the 
victim of the most damaging and dishonorable character 
and there says the victim made it about himself on the 
argument; the inevitable effect of which would be to 
defeat the victim on appeal from his confirmation 
order, if such statement could not be contradicted in 
some way. Fine fixing up for a judge, isn't it? 

The acts of these judges and referee practically say : 
the victim must surrender his honor and property con- 
trary to the law and practice of the Court, and upon a 
statement of several facts nine of which are false; and 
that the victim, his adverse attorney, the justice of the 
peace, the girl's own physician, and another gentleman 
all swore false in trying to cheat her out of her share of 
this money. And then Judge Childs rivets this, at both 
ends, here and at the appellate division, by the last 
quoted false statement from his opinion wherein he 
states, the victim insisted on a state of facts, which 
would show him to be a scoundrel. 



204 



NEW YORK EPISODES. 



A public office is a public trust and he who betrays 
the same should be called to account before the public. 
And the one who calls such officer to account renders 
the public a good service, whether the same is done in 
self defense, for the public good, or for both such 
reasons. 



NEW YORK EPISODES. 205 




NOTHER little episode, in which the public 
have an interest, we think ought to be stated 
here. In September, 1899, one Edward 
Plunkett, had been indicted at Lockport, N. 
Y.j for murder and was brought before 
the court for arraignment, without counsel, Justice 
Childs presiding. Section 308 C. C. Pro. reads: "If 
the defendant appear for arraignment without counsel, 
he must be asked if he desire the aid of counsel, and if 
he does the court must assign counsel. ' ' The only 
question asked Mr. Plunkett on this arraignment was 
how he plead guilty or not guilty; and he was not asked 
if he desired the aid of counsel, and counsel was not 
assigned him at that time as required by the law just 
cited. Now the question is, why did Judge Childs 
ignore and violate this section of the law, and thus 
deprive an unfortunate man about to be tried for his 
life of his legal rights? 

Perhaps the following facts may explain : P. F. King 
of Lockport, N. Y. , is one of the ablest lawyers in the 
State. He is a Democrat and has been district attorney 
of Niagara County six years since this judge has been 
on the bench. All know the judge is a Republican. 
The prisoner was without means to Employ an attorney, 
and the law has generously provided a $500 00 fee and 
disbursements for the attorney assigned to defend such 
a prisoner. It had been quite generally known for some 
time that Mr. King had been selected by the prisoner to 
defend him and expected the court to make such assign- 



206 NEW YORK EPISODES. 

ment. Mr. King was in court at the time of this arraign- 
ment and expected the court would ask the prisoner the 
questions required by Section 308 cited ; so the prisoner 
would have a chance to speak and make his desires 
known to the court; but the court adjourned and after- 
wards made an order assigning the previously mentioned 
James P. Lindsay to defend the prisoner. Mr. Lindsay 
had never tried a criminal case in a court of record in 
this State. But he was a Republican, mixing in poli- 
tics. The Judge also assigned another Republican poli- : 
tician to the defense of this prisoner ; but this attorney 
is an able, eloquent person, the peer of any man in the 
State. These two attorneys received this $500.00 fee 
and disbursements. 

Within the past fourteen years, the victim has been 
falsely accused, falsely arrested, falsely imprisoned 
falsely prosecuted, feloniously poisoned, feloniously 
shot at and attempted to be murdered with knives, 
bullets and poison at times and places too 
numerous to mention; and now he is sought 
to be unlawfully dishonored and despoiled of his 
property in this proceeding in the way here pointed out : 
So is it not time for him to call a halt in this march of 
secret war, and publicly demand a disbandment of the 
army of persecutors and dismissal of its officers? Is he 
not as a matter of self preservation and self defense 
compelled to adopt such a course? And is it not in the 
interest of good morals and good government, to have 
the public thus informed with living examples of these 
secret evils; that will eventually destroy the vitals of 
the nation if Jthey are not discovered and destroyed? 

The duty and necessity of writing and publishing this 
little book of facts is forced upon the victim. If he 
does not do it, he will be secretly boycotted until the 



NEW YORK EPISODES. 207 

means of making a living through his life long pro- 
fession is wrested from him. He will be dishonored in 
his old age and despoiled of his little substance. 
Besides the people would be deprived of the facts here 
disclosed, which, he thinks, will produce inestimable 
good in purifying public officials, and deterring evil- 
disposed persons from further bad conduct. 

To conclude, attention is called to the great number of 
persons involved in this general round up of ruin and 
attempted murder, to the individual types of human 
character therein, to the various wrongs and crimes 
they committed in digging the victim's grave, and how 
befittingly they now fill such grave themselves; and we 
then ask, if the eternal fitness of things is not apparent 
from these facts? 



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